PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE.     Boston,  i8qg. 

GRUNDZUGE  DER  PSYCHOLOGIE.     Leipzig,  igoo. 

AMERICAN  TRAITS.     Boston,  1902. 

DIE  AMERIKANER.     Berlin,  1904. 

PRINCIPLES  OF  ART  EDUCATION.     New  York,  1905. 

THE  ETERNAL  LIFE.     Boston,  1905. 

SCIENCE  AND  IDEALISM.     Boston,  1906. 

PHILOSOPHIE  DER  WERTE.     Leipzig,  1907. 

ON  THE  WITNESS  STAND.     New  York,  1908. 

AUS   DEUTSCH-AMERIKA.      Berlin,   1908. 

PSYCHOTHERAPY.     New  York,  1909. 

THE  ETERNAL  VALUES.     Boston,  1909. 


PSYCHOLOGY 
AND  LIFE 


BY 


HUGO  MUNSTERBERG 

PROFESSOR  OF  PSYCHOLOGY   IN   HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


'e33Ul)frgii)fJ9te^ 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,   1899,  BY   HUGO   MUNSTERBERG 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


TO 

MY  OLD  FRIEND 

HEINRICH  RICKERT 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  THE  UNIVEESITY 

OF  FREIBURG  (BREISGAU) 


PREFACE 

The  following  volume  contains  six  essays 
•which  have  been  brought  before  the  public  dur- 
ing the  last  year  at  very  different  opportunities. 
The  paper  on  History  was  delivered  as  the  presi- 
dential address  before  the  New  York  meeting 
of  the  American  Psychological  Association,  and 
was  published  in  the  ''  Psychological  Review." 
That  on  Education  was  read  before  the  Harvard 
Teachers'  Association  at  their  last  Cambridge 
meeting  and  printed  in  the  "  Educational  Re- 
view." The  essay  on  Physiology  is  an  exten- 
sion of  a  paper  read  before  the  American  Phy- 
siological Society  in  New  York,  and  has  not  as 
yet  been  pubHshed.  The  three  other  papers 
appeared  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly."  That  on 
Mysticism  was  read  before  the  Buffalo  meeting 
of  the  Unitarian  Ministers'  Institute,  and  before 
the  Philosophical  Department  of  Princeton  Uni- 
versity ;  that  on  Art  was  written  for  the  Detroit 
meeting  of  the  American  Drawing  -  Teachers' 
Association,  and  that  on  Real  Life  was  an  ad- 


vi  PREFACE 

dress  to  Wellesley  College.  Two  other  papers 
on  educational  problems  which  I  have  also  pub- 
lished during  the  last  year  in  the  "  Atlantic 
Monthly  "  series,  the  one  under  the  title  "  The 
Danger  from  Experimental  Psychology,"  and  the 
other  "  The  Teacher  and  the  Laboratory,"  are 
not  reprinted  here  because  the  one  was  chiefly 
the  criticism  of  a  book  and  the  other  a  rejoinder 
to  an  attack,  but  they  may  be  mentioned  here 
as  supplementary  interpretations  of  my  educa- 
tional views. 

While  the  six  essays  were  thus  presented  at 
first  to  very  various  audiences,  this  book  is  in  no 
way  a  chance  collection  of  disconnected  pieces. 
The  contrary  is  true.  They  represent  six  chap- 
ters of  a  book  which  was  from  the  first  planned 
as  a  unity,  and  the  separate  publication  of  the 
special  parts  is  merely  accidental.  The  group 
should  decidedly  be  taken  as  a  whole.  One 
fundamental  thought  controls  the  book,  and 
each  essay  leads  only  from  a  different  point  to 
the  same  central  conviction. 

This  chief  aim  is  the  separation  of  the  con- 
ceptions of  psychology  from  the  conceptions  of 
our  real  life.  Popular  ideas  about  psychology 
suggest  that  the  psychological  description  and 
explanation  of  mental  facts  expresses  the  reality 


PREFACE  vii 

of  our  inner  experience.  It  is  a  natural  con- 
sequence of  such  a  view  that  our  ethical  and 
gesthetical,  our  practical  and  educational,  our 
social  and  historical  views  are  subordinated 
to  the  doctrines  of  psychology.  These  papers 
endeavor  to  show  that  psychology  is  not  at 
all  an  expression  of  reality,  but  a  complicated 
transformation  of  it,  worked  out  for  special  logi- 
cal purposes  in  the  service  of  our  life.  Psycho- 
logy is  thus  a  special  abstract  construction  which 
has  a  right  to  consider  everything  from  its  own 
important  standpoint,  but  which  has  nothing  to 
assert  in  regard  to  the  interpretation  and  appre- 
ciation of  our  real  freedom  and  duty,  our  real 
values  and  ideals.  The  aim  is  thus  a  limitation 
of  that  psychology  which  wrongly  proclaims  its 
results  as  a  kind  of  philosophy ;  but  this  Hmita- 
tion,  which  makes  the  traditional  conflicts  with 
ideahstic  views  impossible,  gives  at  the  same 
time  to  the  well-understood  psychology  an  abso- 
lute freedom  in  its  own  field,  and  the  whole 
efPort  is  thus  as  much  in  the  service  of  psycho- 
logy itself  as  in  the  service  of  the  rights  of  life. 
A  scientific  synthesis  of  the  ethical  ideahsm  with 
the  physiological  psychology  of  our  days  is  thus 
my  purpose.  Every  unscientific  and  un philo- 
sophical synthesis  remains  there  necessarily  an 


viii  PREFACE 

insincere  compromise  in  which  science  sacrifices 
its  consistency  and  idealism  sacrifices  its  beliefs ; 
it  is  the  task  of  true  synthesis  to  show  how  the 
one  includes  the  other,  and  how  every  conflict  is 
a  misunderstanding. 

The  first  paper  gives  the  fundamental  tone 
and  characterizes  the  problem  of  the  whole  book. 
The  second  paper,  on  Physiology,  develops  the 
real  functions  of  a  scientific  psychology,  and 
defends  its  absolute  freedom  in  the  consistent 
construction  of  theories  of  mind  and  brain.  The 
following  three  papers  show  in  three  important 
directions,  in  art,  education,  and  history,  how 
such  a  consistent  psychology,  even  though  most 
radical,  cannot  interfere  with  the  conceptions  and 
categories  which  belong  to  the  activities  of  life 
and  to  their  historical  aspect.  The  last  paper 
finally  makes  a  test  for  this  separation,  showing 
that  just  as  psychology  is  not  to  interfere  with 
the  conceptions  of  life,  these  latter  must  not 
interfere  with  the  conceptions  of  psychology ; 
wherever  this  happens,  the  scientific  aspect  of 
mental  life  goes  over  into  mysticism. 

The  isolated  appearance  of  the  different  essays 
has  made  it  necessary  that  each  could  be  under- 
stood alone  without  presupposing  the  knowledge 
of   the  foregoing   papers;    frequent  repetitions 


PREFACE  ix 

were  thus  unavoidable.  It  would  have  been 
easy  to  eliminate  these  in  reprinted  form,  and  to 
link  the  papers  so  that  each  should  presuppose 
acquaintance  with  the  preceding  parts.  But  1 
have  finally  decided  not  to  change  anything  and 
to  publish  them  again  in  a  form  in  which  every 
paper  can  be  understood  for  itself,  because  I 
think  that  in  a  subject  so  difficult  and  so  antago- 
nistic to  the  popular  view  the  chief  points  of 
the  discussion  can  have  impressive  effect  only  if 
they  are  brought  out  repeatedly,  always  in  new 
connections  and  from  new  points  of  view.  They 
may  be  clear,  perhaps,  at  a  first  reading,  but 
may  become  convincing  only  when  they  are 
reached  from  the  most  different  starting-points. 
If  the  axe  does  not  strike  the  same  spot  several 
times,  the  tree  will  not  fall. 

It  may  appear  still  less  excusable  that  when- 
ever I  have  had  to  return  to  the  same  points,  I 
have  made  use  of  the  same  expressions  like 
stereotyped  phrases.  The  effect  would  have 
been  of  course  much  prettier  if  I  had  applied 
a  rich  variety  instead  of  such  a  monotony  of 
terms.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  in  such  compli- 
cated problems  exactness  and  sharpness  of  the 
technical  terms  is  the  condition  for  clearness  and 
consistency,  which  cannot  be  replaced  by  a  more 


X  PREFACE 

or  less  sesthetical  enjoyment.  I  do  not  want  to 
entertain  by  these  papers,  I  want  to  fight;  to 
fight  against  dangers  which  I  see  in  our  pubHc 
life  and  our  education,  in  art  and  science ;  and 
only  those  who  intend  serious  and  consistent 
thought  ought  to  take  up  this  unamusing  book. 
I  say  frankly,  therefore,  that  this  little  volume 
is  not  written  for  those  who  kindly  take  an 
interest  in  the  psychological  discussions  of  the 
essays,  but  do  not  care  for  the  philosophical  part 
which  belongs  to  every  one.  For  such  readers 
much  more  attractive  treatises  on  the  new  psy- 
chology are  abundant.  And  there  is  a  second 
group  of  possible  readers  to  whom  also  I  should 
seal  the  little  book  if  I  had  the  power.  I  refer 
to  those  who  heartily  agree  with  my  general 
conclusion  that  no  conflict  between  science  and 
the  demands  of  hfe  exists,  but  who  base  this 
attitude  merely  on  feeling  and  emotion,  and  who 
thus  dread  the  indirect  method  of  abstract  con- 
ceptions, all  the  more  since  they  are  not  troubled 
by  a  demand  for  consistency  in  science.  I  have 
nothing  in  common  with  them ;  I  am  not  a  mis- 
sionary of  the  Salvation  Army.  And,  finally, 
I  must  warn  still  a  third  group  whose  exist- 
ence I  should  not  have  suspected  if  it  had  not 
shown  most  vehement  symptoms  of  life  after  the 


PREFACE  xi 

publication  of  some  of  my  "  Atlantic  Monthly  " 
papers.  I  have  in  mind  those  who  consider  a 
critical  examination  of  the  rights  and  limits  of  a 
science  as  an  attack  against  that  science,  instead 
of  seeing  that  it  is  the  chief  condition  for  a 
sound  and  productive  growth  ;  the  triumph 
through  confusion  is  in  the  long  run  never  a  real 
gain  for  a  science.  Those  who,  perhaps  with 
anger,  perhaps  with  delight,  consider  my  warn- 
ing against  a  dangerous  misuse  of  psychology, 
pedagogy,  and  so  on,  as  an  onslaught  against 
psychology  or  pedagogy  itself,  certainly  mis- 
understand my  intentions. 

Finally,  I  wish  to  express  my  thanks  to  the 
Assistant  in  the  Psychological  Laboratory  of 
Eadcliffe  College,  Miss  Ethel  Puffer,  for  the 
revision  of  my  manuscript,  and  to  the  Assistant 
in  the  Psychological  Laboratory  of  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, Dr.  Robert  MacDougall,  for  the  revision 
of  the  proofs.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  in 
spite  of  their  helpful  retouching  of  my  language, 
the  whole  cast  shows  the  style  of  the  foreigner 
who  is  a  beginner  in  the  use  of  English,  and 
who  must  thus  seriously  ask  for  the  indulgence 

of  the  reader. 

Hugo  Mijnsterberg. 

Harvard  University,  February,  1899. 


CONTENTS 


FAOB 

Psychology  and  Life 1-34 

1.    The  standpoint  of  naturalism         .         -         .         ,  1 

The  psychological  view  of  personality       .         .  4 

The  psychological  view  of  life  and  duty         .         .  9 

The  standpoint  of  reality  .....  15 

The  idealistic  view  of  life 23 

The  idealistic  view  of  psychology      ...  28 
Psychology  and  Physiology        ....         35-99 

1.    Hopes  and  fears  from  physiological  psychology     .  35 

The  empirical  relations  between  mind  and  brain  40 

The  description  of  mental  facts     ....  44 

The  explanation  of  mental  facts          ...  53 

The  physiological  explanation  of  mental  facts        .  60 

The  usefulness  of  the  psychophysical  functions  .  68 
The  biological  development  of  the  psychophysical 

apparatus 74 

Mistakes   of   association   and   apperception  theo- 
ries         

The  advantages  of  an  action  theory 


2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 


2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 

8. 

9. 


Psychology  and  Education      .... 

1.  The  teaching  of  psychology  , 

2.  Psychology  of  the  child      .... 

3.  Methods  and  limits  of  child  psychology 

4.  Child  psychology,  experimental  psychology, 

siological  psychology         ... 

5.  The  value  of  psychology  for  the  teacher    . 

6.  The  value  of  psychology  for  pedagogy  . 
Psychology  and  Art 

1.  The  artist  as  psychologist 

2.  The  psychical  causes  of  the  work  of  art     . 

3.  The  psychical  effects  of  the  work  of  art 

4.  Drawing  instruction  in  schools  . 


81 

.   91 

100-144 

.  100 

106 

.  112 


phy- 


.  121 

128 

.  135 

145-178 

.  145 

152 
.  157 

163 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


5. 
6. 


Psychology  and  History 


The  psychological  aspect  and  the  reality        .         .     169 
The  philosophical  aspect  of  art  and  art  instruc- 
tion   174 

179-228 

.     179 

185 

.     191 

195 

.    200 

205 

.     210 

217 

.    223 

229-282 

.    229 

234 

.    239 

244 

.    249 

253 

.    262 


1.  The  idealistic  tendencies  of  our  time 

2.  Laws  and  special  facts 

3.  Description  and  explanation  . 

4.  The  real  subjects        .... 

5.  Science  and  art      .... 

6.  The  causal  and  the  teleological  aspects 

7.  The  task  of  history 

8.  History  and  causality 

9.  History  and  the  normative  sciences 
Psychology  and  Mysticism 

1.  The  psychological  claims  of  mysticism 

2.  The  scientific  aspect  .... 

3.  Hypnotic  suggestion 

4.  Christian  science  and  miud  cure 
6.  Double  consciousness     . 

6.  Examination  of  the  claimed  facts 

7.  The  mechanical  and  the  emotional  view 

8.  The  emotional  categories  applied  to  psychophysi- 

cal processes     .......     269 

9.  Telepathy  and  spiritualism  ;  immortality  .        .         275 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 


The  world  of  science  and  learning,  as  well  as 
the  social  world,  has  its  alternating  seasons  and 
its  capricious  fashions.  Mathematics  and  phi- 
losophy, theology  and  physics,  philology  and  his- 
tory, each  has  had  its  great  time ;  each  was  once 
favored  both  by  the  leaders  of  knowledge  and 
by  the  crowd  of  imitating  followers.  The  nine- 
teenth century,  which  began  with  high  philo- 
sophical inspirations,  has  turned  decidedly  toward 
natural  science ;  the  description  of  the  universe 
by  dissolving  it  into  atomistic  elements,  and  the 
explanation  of  it  by  natural  laws  without  regard 
for  the  meaning  and  value  of  the  world,  has 
been  the  scientific  goal.  But  this  movement 
toward  naturalistic  dissolution  has  also  gone 
through  several  phases.  It  started  with  the 
rapid  development  of  physics  and  chemistry, 
which  brought  as  a  practical  result  the  wonderful 
gifts  of  technique.  From  the  inorganic  world 
scientific  interest  turned  toward  the  org-anic 
world.    For  a  few  decades,  physiology,  the  science 


8  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

of  the  living  organism,  enjoyed  an  almost  unsuiy 
passed  development,  and  brought  as  its  practical 
outcome  modern  medicine.  From  the  functions 
of  the  single  organism  public  interest  has  been 
drawn  to  the  problems  of  the  evolution  of  the 
organic  world  as  a  whole.  Darwinism  has  in- 
vaded the  educated  quarters,  and  its  practical 
consequence  has  been  rightly  or  wrongly  a  revo- 
lution against  dogmatic  traditions. 

Finally,  the  interests  of  the  century  have  gone 
a  step  farther,  —  the  last  step  which  naturalism 
can  take.  If  the  physical  and  the  chemical,  the 
physiological  and  the  biological  world,  in  short 
the  whole  world  of  outer  experience,  is  atomized 
and  explained,  there  remains  only  the  world  of 
inner  experience,  the  world  of  the  conscious 
personahty,  to  be  brought  under  the  views  of 
natural  science.  The  period  of  psychology,  of 
the  natural  science  of  the  mental  life,  began. 
It  dawned  ten,  perhaps  fifteen  years  ago,  and 
we  are  living  in  the  middle  of  it.  No  Edison 
and  no  Roentgen  can  make  us  forget  that  the 
great  historical  time  of  physics  and  physiology  is 
gone ;  psychology  takes  the  central  place  in  the 
thought  of  our  time,  and  overflows  into  all 
channels  of  our  life.  It  began  with  an  analysis 
of  simple  ideas  and  feelings,  and  it  has  de- 
veloped to  an  insight  into  the  mechanism  of  the 
highest  acts  and  emotions,  thoughts  and  crea- 
tions.    It  started  by  studying  the  mental  life 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  3 

of  the  individual,  and  it  has  rushed  forward  to 
the  psychical  organization  of  society,  to  social 
psychology,  to  the  psychology  of  art  and  science, 
religion  and  language,  history  and  law.  It  be- 
gan with  an  increased  carefulness  of  self-obser- 
vation, and  it  has  developed  to  an  experimental 
science,  with  the  most  elaborate  methods  of  tech- 
nique, and  with  scores  of  great  laboratories  in 
its  service.  It  started  in  the  narrow  circles  of 
philosophers,  and  it  is  now  at  home  wherever 
mental  life  is  touched.  The  historian  strives  to- 
day for  psychological  explanation,  the  economist 
for  psychological  laws ;  jurisprudence  looks  on 
the  criminal  from  a  psychological  standpoint; 
medicine  emphasizes  the  psychological  value  of 
its  assistance;  the  realistic  artist  and  poet  fight 
for  psychological  truth ;  the  biologist  mixes  psy- 
chology in  his  theories  of  evolution ;  the  philolo- 
gist explains  the  languages  psychologically ;  and 
while  aesthetical  criticism  systematically  coquets 
with  psychology,  pedagogy  seems  ready  even  to 
marry  her. 

As  the  earlier  stages  of  naturalistic  interests, 
the  rush  toward  physics,  physiology,  biology, 
were  each,  as  we  have  seen,  of  characteristic 
influence  on  the  practical  questions  of  real  life, 
it  is  a  matter  of  course  that  this  hisrhest  and 
most  radical  type  of  naturalistic  thinking,  the 
naturalistic  dissolution  of  mental  life,  must  stir 
up  and  even   revolutionize  the  whole  practical 


4  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

world.  From  the  nursery  to  the  university^  from 
the  hospital  to  the  court  of  justice,  from  the 
theatre  to  the  church,  from  the  parlor  to  the 
parliament,  the  new  influence  of  psychology  on 
the  real  daily  life  is  felt  in  this  country  as  in 
Europe,  producing  new  hopes  and  new  fears, 
new  schemes  and  new  responsibilities. 

Let  us  consider  the  world  we  live  in,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  this  new  creed.  What  becomes 
of  the  universe  and  what  of  the  human  race, 
what  becomes  of  our  duty  and  what  of  our 
freedom,  what  becomes  of  our  friends  and  what 
of  ourselves,  if  psychology  is  not  only  true,  but 
the  only  truth,  and  has  to  determine  the  values 
of  our  real  life  ? 

II 

What  is  our  personality,  seen  from  the  psy- 
chological point  of  view?  We  separate  the 
consciousness  and  the  content  of  consciousness. 
From  the  standpoint  of  psychology,  —  I  mean  a 
consistent  psychology,  not  a  psychology  that 
lives  by  all  kinds  of  compromises  with  philosophy 
and  ethics,  —  from  the  standpoint  of  psychology 
the  consciousness  itself  is  in  no  way  a  person- 
ality ;  it  is  only  an  abstraction  from  the  totality 
of  conscious  facts,  —  an  abstraction  just  as  the 
conception  of  nature  is  abstracted  from  the  na- 
tural physical  objects.  Consciousness  does  not 
do  anything ;   consciousness  is  only  the  empty 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  6 

place  for  the  manif oldness  of  psychical  facts ;  it 
is  the  mere  presupposition  making  possible  the 
existence  of  the  content  of  consciousness,  but 
every  thought  and  feeling  and  volition  must  be 
itself  such  a  content  of  consciousness.  Person- 
ality, too,  is  thus  a  content ;  it  is  the  central 
content  of  our  consciousness,  and  psychology 
can  show  in  a  convincing  way  how  this  funda- 
mental idea  grows  and  influences  the  develop- 
ment of  mental  life.  We  know  how  the  whole 
idea  of  personality  crystallizes  about  those  tac- 
tual and  muscular  and  optical  sensations  which 
come  from  the  body ;  how  at  first  the  child  does 
not  discriminate  his  own  limbs  from  the  outside 
objects  he  sees ;  and  how  slowly  the  experiences, 
the  pains,  the  successes,  which  connect  them- 
selves with  the  movements  and  contacts  of  this 
one  body  blur  into  the  idea  of  that  central 
object,  our  physical  personality,  into  which  the 
mental  experiences  become  gradually  introjected. 
Psychology  shows  how  this  idea  of  the  Ego 
grows  steadily  side  by  side  with  the  idea  of  the 
Alter,  and  how  it  associates  with  itself  the  whole 
toanifoldness  of  personal  achievements  and  ex- 
periences. Psychology  shows  how  it  develops 
toward  a  sociological  personality,  appropriating 
everything  which  works  in  the  world  under  the 
control  of  our  will,  in  the  interest  of  our  influ- 
ence, just  as  our  body  works,  including  thus  our 
name  and  our  clothing,  our  friends  and  our  work, 


6  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

our  property  and  our  social  community.  Psy« 
chology  shows  how,  on  the  other  hand,  this  idea 
can  shrink  and  expel  everything  which  is  not 
essential  for  the  continuity  of  this  central  group 
of  psychical  contents.  Our  personahty  does  not 
depend  upon  our  chance  knowledge  and  chance 
sensations ;  it  remains,  once  formed,  if  we  lose 
even  our  arms  and  legs  with  their  sensations; 
and  thus  the  personality  becomes  that  most 
central  group  of  psychical  contents  which  ac- 
company the  transformation  of  experiences  into 
actions;  that  is,  feelings  and  will.  Thus  psy- 
chology demonstrates  a  whole  scale  of  personali- 
ties in  every  one  of  us,  —  the  psychological  one, 
the  sociological  one,  the  ideal  one ;  but  each  one 
is  and  can  be  only  a  group  of  psychical  contents, 
R  bundle  of  sensational  elements.  It  is  an  idea 
which  is  endlessly  more  complicated,  but  theo- 
retically not  otherwise  constituted,  than  the 
idea  of  our  table  or  our  house ;  just  as,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  chemistry,  the  substance 
which  we  call  a  human  body  is  theoretically  not 
otherwise  constituted  than  any  other  physical 
thing.  The  influence  of  the  idea  of  personality 
means  psychologically,  then,  its  associative  and 
inhibitory  effects  on  the  mechanism  of  the  other 
contents  of  consciousness,  and  the  unity  and 
continuity  of  the  personality  mean  that  causal 
connection  of  its  parts  by  which  anything  that 
has  once  entered  our  psychical  life  may  be  at 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   LIFE  T 

any  time  reproduced,  and  may  help  to  change 
the  associative  effects  which  come  from  the  idea 
of  ourselves. 

Has  this  psychological  personahty  freedom  of 
•will?  Certainly.  Everything  depends  in  this 
case  upon  the  definitions,  and  the  psychologist 
can  easily  construct  a  conception  of  freedom 
which  is  in  the  highest  degree  realized  in  the 
psychophysical  organism  and  its  psychological 
experiences.  Freedom  of  will  means  to  him 
absence  of  an  outer  force,  or  of  pathological 
disturbance  in  the  causation  of  our  actions.  We 
are  free,  as  our  actions  are  not  the  mere  outcome 
of  conditions  which  lie  outside  of  our  organism, 
but  the  product  of  our  own  motives  and  their 
normal  connections.  All  our  experiences  and 
thoughts,  our  inherited  dispositions  and  trained 
habits,  our  hopes  and  fears,  cooperate  in  our 
consciousness  and  in  its  physiological  substratum, 
our  brain,  to  bring  about  the  action.  Under 
the  same  outer  conditions,  somebody  else  would 
have  acted  otherwise ;  or  we  ourselves  should 
have  preferred  and  done  something  else,  if  our 
memory  or  our  imagination  or  our  reason  had 
furnished  some  other  associations.  The  act  is 
ours,  we  are  responsible,  we  could  have  stopped 
it;  and  only  those  are  unfree,  and  therefore 
irresponsible,  who  are  passive  sufferers  from  an 
outer  force,  or  who  have  no  normal  mental 
mechanism  for  the  production  of  their  action,  a 


8  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

psychophysical  disturbance  which  comes  as  a 
kind  of  outer  force  to  paralyze  the  organism,  be 
it  alcohol  or  poison,  hypnotism  or  brain  disease, 
which  comes  as  an  intruder  to  inhibit  the  regular 
free  play  of  the  motives. 

Of  course,  if  we  should  ask  the  psychologist 
whether  this  unfree  and  that  free  action  stand 
in  different  relations  to  the  psychological  and 
physiological  laws,  he  would  answer  only  with  a 
smile.  To  think  that  freedom  of  will  means  in- 
dependence of  psychological  laws  is  to  him  an 
absurdity ;  our  free  action  is  just  as  much  de- 
termined by  laws,  and  psychologically  just  as 
necessary,  as  the  irresponsible  action  of  the  hyp- 
notized or  of  the  maniacal  subject.  That  the 
whole  world  of  mental  facts  is  determined  by 
laws,  and  that  therefore  in  the  mental  world 
just  as  little  as  in  the  physical  universe  do  won- 
ders happen,  is  the  necessary  presupposition  of 
psychology,  which  it  does  not  discuss,  but  takes 
for  granted.  If  the  perceptions,  associations, 
feeHngs,  emotions,  and  dispositions  are  all  given, 
the  action  must  necessarily  happen  as  it  does. 
The  effect  is  absolutely  determined  by  the  com- 
bination of  causes ;  only  the  effect  is  a  free 
one,  because  those  causes  lay  within  us.  To  be 
sure,  those  causes  and  motives  in  us  have  them- 
selves causes,  and  these  deeper  causes  may  not 
lie  in  ourselves.  We  have  not  ourselves  chosen 
all  the  experiences  of  our  lives ;  we  did  not  our- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  9 

selves  pick  out  the  knowledge  with  which  our 
early  instruction  provided  us ;  we  have  not  our- 
selves created  those  brain  dispositions  and  talents 
and  tendencies  which  form  in  us  decisions  and 
actions.  Thus  the  causes  refer  to  our  ancestors, 
our  teachers  and  the  surrounding  conditions  of 
society,  and  with  the  causes  must  the  responsi- 
bility be  pushed  backwards.  The  unhealthy 
parents,  and  not  the  immoral  children,  are  re- 
sponsible ;  the  unfitted  teacher,  and  not  the  mis- 
behaving pupil,  should  be  blamed ;  society,  and 
not  the  criminal,  is  guilty.  To  take  it  in  its 
most  general  meaning,  the  cosmical  elements, 
with  their  general  laws,  and  not  we  single  mor- 
tals, are  the  fools ! 

Ill 

The  actions  of  personalities  fo'rm  the  substance 
of  history.  Whatever  men  have  created  by  their 
will  in  politics  and  social  relations,  in  art  and 
science,  in  technics  and  law,  is  the  object  of  the 
historian's  interest.  What  that  all  means,  seen 
through  the  spectacles  of  psychology,  is  easily 
deduced.  The  historical  material  is  made  up 
of  will  functions  of  personalities;  personalities 
are  special  groups  of  psychophysical  elements ; 
free-will  functions  are  necessary  products  of  the 
foregoing  psychophysical  conditions ;  history, 
therefore,  is  the  report  about  a  large  series  of 
causally    determmed    psychophysical    processes 


10  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

which  happened  to  occur.  But  it  is  a  matter 
of  course  that  the  photographic  and  phono- 
graphic copy  of  raw  material  does  not  constitute 
a  science.  Science  has  everywhere  to  go  for- 
ward from  the  single  unconnected  data  to  the 
general  relations  and  connections.  Consequently, 
history  as  a  scientific  undertaking  is  not  satisfied 
with  the  kinematographic  view  of  all  the  mental 
processes  which  ever  passed  through  human 
brains,  but  it  presses  toward  general  connection, 
and  the  generalizations  for  single  processes  are 
the  causal  laws  which  underHe  them.  The  aim 
of  history,  then,  must  be  to  find  the  constant 
psychological  laws  which  control  the  develop- 
ment of  nations  and  races,  and  which  produce 
the  leader  and  the  mob,  the  genius  and  the 
crowd,  war  and  peace,  progress  and  social  dis- 
eases. The  great  economic  and  climatic  factors 
in  the  evolution  of  the  human  race  come  into 
the  foreground;  the  single  individual  and  the 
single  event  disappear  from  sight ;  the  extraor- 
dinary man  becomes  the  extreme  case  of  the 
average  crowd,  produced  by  a  chance  combi- 
nation of  dispositions  and  conditions ;  genius 
and  insanity  begin  to  touch  each  other  ;  nothing 
is  new ;  the  same  conditions  bring  again  and 
again  the  same  effects  in  new  masks  and  gowns ; 
history,  with  all  its  branches,  becomes  a  vast  de- 
partment of  social  psychology. 

But   if    the   free   actions   of    historical   per* 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  U 

sonalitles  are  the  necessarily  determined  func- 
tions o£  psychophysical  organisms,  what  else  are 
and  can  be  the  norms  and  laws  which  these  per- 
sonalities obey?  Certainly,  the  question  which 
such  laws  answer,  the  question  what  ought  to 
be,  does  not  coincide  with  the  question  what  is ; 
but  even  that  "  ought  "  exists  only  as  a  psychical 
content  in  the  consciousness  of  men,  as  a  con- 
tent which  attains  the  character  of  a  command 
only  by  its  associative  and  inhibitory  relations  to 
our  feelings  and  emotions.  In  short,  it  is  a 
psychical  content  which  may  be  characterized  by 
special  effects  on  the  psychological  mechanism  of 
associations  and  actions,  but  which  is  theoreti- 
cally coordinated  to  every  other  psychical  idea, 
and  which  grows  and  varies,  therefore,  in  human 
minds,  under  the  same  laws  of  adaptation  and 
inheritance  and  tradition  as  every  other  mental 
thing.  Our  ethical  laws  are,  then,  the  necessary 
products  of  psychological  laws,  changing  with 
climate  and  race  and  food  and  institutions,  types 
of  action  desirable  for  the  conservation  of  the 
social  organism.  And  just  the  same  must  be 
true  for  sesthetical  and  even  for  logical  rules 
and  laws.  Natural  processes  have  in  a  long 
evolutionary  development  produced  brains  which 
connect  psychological  facts  in  a  useful  corre- 
spondence to  the  surrounding  physical  world ; 
an  apparatus  which  connects  psychical  facts  in 
a   way   which   misleads   in   the   outer   physical 


12  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

world  is  badly  adapted,  and  must  be  lost  in 
the  struggle  for  existence.  Logical  laws  are, 
then,  just  so  many  types  of  useful  psychical  pro- 
cesses, depending  upon  the  psychophysical  laws, 
aiid  changing  with  the  conditions  and  complica- 
tions of  life. 

The  psychologist  will  add :  Do  not  feel  wor- 
ried by  that  merely  psychological  origin  of  all 
our  inner  laws.  Is  not  their  final  goal  also  in 
any  case  only  the  production  of  a  special  psy- 
chophysical state  ?  What  else  can  our  thinking 
and  feeling  and  acting  strive  for  than  to  pro- 
duce a  mental  state  of  agreeable  character  ?  We 
think  logically  because  the  result  is  useful  for 
us ;  that  is,  secures  the  desired  agreeable,  prac- 
tical ends.  We  seek  beauty  because  we  enjoy 
beautiful  creations  of  art  and  nature.  We  act 
morally  because  we  wish  to  give  to  others  also 
that  happiness  which  we  desire  for  ourselves. 
In  short,  the  production  of  the  psychological 
states  of  delight  and  enjoyment  in  us  and  others, 
and  the  reduction  of  the  opposite  mental  states 
of  pain  and  sorrow,  are  the  only  aim  and  goal  of 
a  full,  sound  hfe.  Were  all  the  disagreeable 
feelings  in  human  consciousness  replaced  by 
happy  feelings,  one  psychological  content  thus 
replaced  by  another,  heaven  would  be  on  earth. 

But  psychology  can  go  one  more  step  for- 
ward. We  know  what  life  means  to  it,  but 
what  does  the  world  mean  ?     What  is  its  meta- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  13 

physical  credo  ?  There  need  not  be  much  specu- 
lative fight  about  it.  All  who  understand  the 
necessary  premises  of  psychology  ought  to  agree 
as  to  the  necessary  conclusions.  Psychology 
starts  with  the  presupposition  that  all  objects 
which  have  existence  in  the  universe  are  physical 
or  psychical,  objects  in  matter  or  objects  in  con- 
sciousness. Other  objects  are  not  perceivable 
by  us,  and  therefore  do  not  exist.  To  come 
from  this  to  a  philosophical  insight  into  the  ulti- 
mate reality,  we  must  ask  whether  these  physical 
and  psychical  facts  are  equally  true.  To  doubt 
that  anything  at  all  exists  is  absurd,  as  such 
a  thought  shows  already  that  at  least  thoughts 
exist.  The  question  is,  then,  only  whether  both 
physical  and  psychical  facts  are  real,  or  physical 
only,  or  psychical  only.  The  first  view  is  philo- 
sophical dualism ;  the  second  is  materialistic 
monism  ;  and  the  third  is  spiritualistic  monism. 
Psychology  cannot  hesitate  long.  What  ab- 
surdity to  believe  in  materialism,  or  even  in 
dualism,  as  it  is  clear  that  in  the  last  reality  all 
matter  is  given  to  us  only  as  idea  in  our  con-  y 
sciousness !  We  may  see  and  touch  and  hear 
and  smell  the  physical  world,  but  whatever  we 
see  we  know  only  as  our  visual  sensations,  and 
what  we  touch  is  given  to  us  as  our  tactual  sen- 
sations ;  in  short,  we  have  an  absolute  knowledge 
which  no  philosophical  criticism  can  shake,  only 
in  our  own  sensations  and  other  contents  of  con- 


14  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

sciousness.  Physical  things  may  be  acknow- 
ledged as  a  practical  working  hypothesis  for  the 
simple  explanation  of  the  order  of  our  sensations, 
but  the  philosophical  truth  must  be  that  our  psy- 
chical facts  alone  are  certain,  and  therefore  un- 
doubtedly real. 

Only  our  mind-stuff  is  real.  Yet  I  have  no 
right  to  call  it  "  ours,"  as  those  other  per- 
sonalities whom  I  perceive  exist  also  only  as  my 
perceptions ;  they  are  philosophically  all  in  my 
own  consciousness,  which  I  never  can  transcend. 
But  have  I  still  the  right  to  call  that  my  con- 
sciousness ?  An  I  has  a  meaning  only  where  a 
Thou  is  granted ;  where  no  Alter  is  there  cannot 
be  an  Ego.  The  real  world  is,  therefore,  not 
my  consciousness,  but  an  absolutely  impersonal 
consciousness  in  which  a  series  of  psychical  states 
goes  on  in  succession.  Have  I  the  right  to  call  it 
a  succession  ?  Succession  presupposes  time,  but 
whence  do  I  know  about  time  ?  The  past  and 
the  future  are  given  to  me,  of  course,  only  by 
my  present  thinking  of  them.  I  do  not  know 
the  past ;  I  know  only  that  I  at  present  think 
the  past ;  the  present  thought  is,  then,  the  only 
absolutely  real  thing.  But  if  there  is  no  past 
and  no  future,  to  speak  of  a  present  has  no 
meaning.  The  real  psychical  fact  is  without 
time  as  without  personality;  it  is  for  nobody, 
for  no  end,  and  with  no  value.  That  is  the  last 
word  of  a  psychology  which  pretends  to  be 
philosophy. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  18 

IV 

Now  let  us  return  to  our  starting-point :  are 
we  really  obliged  to  accept  this  view  of  the 
world  as  the  last  word  of  the  knowledge  of  our 
century?  Can  our  historical  and  political,  our 
ethical  and  aesthetical,  our  logical  and  philosoph- 
ical thinking, — in  short,  can  the  world  of  our 
real  practical  life  be  satisfied  with  such  a  credo  ? 
And  if  we  wish  to  escape  it,  is  it  true  that  we 
have  to  deny  in  our  conscience  all  that  the  cen- 
tury calls  learning  and  knowledge  ?  Is  it  true 
that  only  a  mysterious  belief  can  overcome  such 
positivistic  misery,  and  that  we  have  to  accept 
thus  the  most  anti-philosophical  attitude  toward 
the  world  which  exists  ;  that  is,  a  mixture  of 
positivism  and  mysticism  ? 

To  be  sure,  we  cannot,  no,  we  cannot  be  satis- 
fied with  that  practical  outcome  of  psychology, 
with  those  conclusions  about  the  final  character 
of  personality  and  freedom,  about  history  and 
logic  and  ethics,  about  man  and  the  universe. 
Every  fibre  in  us  revolts,  every  value  in  our  real 
life  rejects  such  a  construction.  We  do  not  feel 
ourselves  such  conglomerates  of  psychophysical 
elements,  and  the  men  whom  we  admire  and  con- 
demn, love  and  hate,  are  for  us  not  identical  with 
those  combinations  of  psychical  atoms  which  pull 
and  push  one  another  after  psychological  laws. 
We   do  not  mean,  with   our  responsibility  and 


i6  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

with  our  freedom  in  the  moral  world,  that  our 
consciousness  is  the  passive  spectator  of  psycho- 
logical processes  which  go  on  causally  determined 
by  laws,  satisfied  that  some  of  the  causes  are 
inside  of  our  skull,  and  not  outside.  The  child 
is  to  us  in  real  life  no  vegetable  which  has  to  be 
raised  like  tomatoes,  and  the  criminal  is  no  weed 
which  does  not  feel  that  it  destroys  the  garden. 

Does  history  really  mean  for  us  what  psycho- 
logical and  economical  and  statistical  laws  put  in 
its  place ?  Are  "  heroism  "  and  "  hero-worship" 
empty  words?  Have  Kant  and  Fichte,  Carlyle 
and  Emerson,  really  nothing  to  say  any  more, 
and  are  Comte  and  Buckle  our  only  apostles? 
Do  we  mean,  in  speaking  of  Napoleon  and  Wash- 
ington, Newton  and  Goethe,  those  complicated 
chemical  processes  which  the  physiologist  sees  in 
their  life,  and  those  accompanying  psychical  pro- 
cesses which  the  psychologist  enumerates  between 
their  birth  and  their  death  ?  Do  we  really  still 
think  historically,  if  we  consider  the  growth  of 
the  nations  and  this  gigantic  civilization  on  earth 
as  the  botanist  studies  the  growth  of  the  mould 
which  covers  a  rotten  apple  ?  Is  it  really  only  a 
difference  of  complication  ? 

But  worse  things  are  offered  to  our  belief. 
We  are  asked  not  only  to  consider  all  that  the 
past  has  brought  as  the  necessary  product  of 
psychological  laws,  but  also  to  believe  that  all 
we  are  striving  and  working  for,  all  our  life's 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  17 

fight,  —  it  may  be  the  noblest  one,  —  means 
nothing  else  than  the  production  o£  some  psy- 
chological states  of  mind,  of  some  feelings  of 
agreeableness  ;  in  short,  that  the  tickling  sensa- 
tions are  the  ideal  goal  of  our  life.  The  great- 
est possible  happiness  of  the  greatest  possible 
number,  that  discouraging  phrase  in  which  the 
whole  vulgarity  of  a  naturalistic  century  seems 
condensed,  is  it  really  the  source  of  inspiration 
for  an  ideal  soul,  and  does  our  conscience  really 
look  out  for  titillation  in  connection  with  a  ma- 
jority vote  ? 

If  you  repeat  again  and  again  that  there  are 
only  relative  laws,  no  absolute  truth  and  beauty 
and  morality,  that  they  are  changing  products 
of  the  outer  conditions  without  binding  power, 
you  contradict  yourself  by  the  assertion.  Do 
you  not  demand  already  for  your  skeptical  denial 
that  at  least  this  denial  itself  is  an  absolute 
truth  ?  And  when  you  discuss  it,  and  stand  for 
your  con\4ction  that  there  is  no  morality,  does 
not  this  involve  your  acknowledgment  of  the 
moral  law  to  stand  for  one's  conviction  ?  If  you 
do  not  acknowledge  that,  you  allow  the  infer- 
ence that  you  yourself  do  not  believe  that  which 
you  stand  for,  and  that  you  know,  therefore, 
that  an  absolute  morality  does  exist.  Psycho- 
logical skepticism  contradicts  itself  by  its  pre- 
tensions ;  there  is  a  truth,  a  beauty,  a  morality, 
which   is   independent  of   psychological   condi- 


18  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

tions.  When  such  ideal  duties  penetrate  our 
life,  we  cannot  rest  at  last  in  a  psychological 
metaphysics  where  the  universe  is  an  impersonal 
content  of  consciousness  ;  and  every  straightfor- 
ward man,  to  whom  the  duties  of  his  real  life 
are  no  sounding  brass,  speaks  with  a  calm  voice 
to  the  psychologist :  There  are  more  things  in 
heaven  and  earth  than  are  dreamt  of  in  your 
philosophy. 

Is  there  really  no  possible  combination  of  these 
two  attitudes?  Certainly  such  combination  is  not 
given  by  an  inconsistent  compromise.  If  we  say 
to  the  intellect.  Go  on  with  your  analyzing  and 
explaining  psychology,  but  stop  halfway,  before 
you  come  to  practical  acting;  and  say  to  our 
feeling  and  conscience,  Go  on  with  your  noble 
life,  but  do  not  try  to  think  about  it,  for  all  your 
values  would  show  themselves  as  a  poor  illusion ; 
then  there  remains  only  one  thing  doubtful, 
whether  the  conscience  or  the  intellect  is  in  the 
more  pitiful  state.  Thinking  that  is  too  faint- 
hearted to  act,  and  acting  that  is  ashamed  to 
think,  are  a  miserable  pair  who  cannot  live  to- 
gether through  a  real  life.  No  such  coward 
compromise  comes  here  in  question,  and  still  less 
do  we  accept  the  position  that  the  imperfectness 
of  the  sciences  of  to-day  must  be  the  comfort  of 
our  conscience. 

The  combination  of  the  two  attitudes  is  possi- 
ble ;  more  than  that,  it  is  necessary  in  the  right 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  10 

interests  of  both  sides,  as  the  whole  apparent 
contradiction  rests  on  an  entire  misunderstand- 
ing. It  is  not  psychology  that  contradicts  the 
demands  of  hfe,  but  the  misuse  of  psychology. 
Psychology  has  the  right  and  the  duty  to  con- 
sider everything  from  the  psychological  stand- 
point, but  life  and  history,  ethics  and  philosophy, 
have  neither  the  duty  nor  the  right  to  accept 
as  a  picture  of  reality  the  impression  which  is 
reached  from  the  psychological  standpoint. 

We  have  asked  the  question  whether  the  psy- 
chical objects  or  the  physical  objects,  or  both, 
represent  the  last  reality  ;  we  saw  that  dualistic 
realism  and  materialism  decided  for  the  last  two 
interpretations,  while  psychology  voted  for  the 
first.  It  seems  that  one  of  these  three  decisions 
must  be  correct,  and  just  here  is  the  great  mis- 
understanding. No,  all  three  are  equally  wrong 
and  worthless  ;  a  fourth  alone  is  right,  which 
says  that  neither  the  physical  objects  nor  the 
psychical  objects  represent  reality,  but  both  are 
ideal  constructions  of  the  subject,  both  deduced 
from  the  reality  which  is  no  physical  object,  no 
psychical  object,  and  even  no  existing  object  at 
all,  as  the  very  conception  of  an  existing  object 
means  a  transformation  of  the  reality.  Such 
transformation  has  its  purpose  for  our  thoughts 
and  is  logically  valuable,  and  therefore  it  repre- 
sents scientific  truth  ;  but  this  truth  nevertheless 
does  not  reach  the  reality  of  the  untransformed 


20  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  LIFE 

life.  It  is  exactly  the  same  relation  as  that  be- 
tween natural  science  and  materialism.  Natural 
science  considers  the  world  as  a  mechanism,  and 
for  that  purpose  transforms  the  reality  in  a  most 
complicated  and  ingenious  way.  It  puts  in  the 
place  of  the  perceivable  objects  unperceivable 
atoms  which  are  merely  products  of  mathemati- 
cal construction  quite  unlike  any  known  thing; 
and  nevertheless  these  atoms  are  scientifically 
true,  as  their  construction  is  necessary  for  that 
special  logical  purpose.  To  affirm  that  they  are 
true  means  that  they  are  of  objective  value  for 
thought.  But  it  is  absurd  to  think,  with  the 
materialistic  philosopher,  that  these  atoms  form 
a  reality  which  is  more  real  than  the  known 
things,  or  even  the  only  reality,  excluding  the 
right  of  all  not  space-filling  realities.  The  phy- 
sical science  of  matter  is  true,  and  is  true  with- 
out limit  and  without  exception ;  materiahsm  is 
wrong  from  beginning  to  end.  There  is,  in- 
deed, no  physical  object  in  the  world  which 
natural  science  ought  not  to  transmute  into 
atoms,  but  no  atom  in  the  world  has  reality  ; 
and  these  two  statements  do  not  contradict  each 
other. 

In  the  same  way  psychology  is  right,  but  the 
psychologism  which  considers  the  psychological 
elements  and  their  mechanism  as  reality  is  wrong 
from  its  root  to  its  top,  and  this  psychologism  is 
not  a  bit   better   than   materiahsm.     It  makes 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  21 

practically  no  difference  whether  the  real  sub- 
stance is  of  the  clumsy  space-filling  material  or 
of  the  finer  stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of ;  both 
are  existing  objects,  both  are  combinations  of 
atomistic  indivisible  elements,  both  are  in  their 
changes  controlled  and  determined  by  general 
laws,  both  make  the  world  a  succession  of  causes 
and  effects.  The  psychical  mechanism  has  no 
advantage  over  the  physical  one ;  both  mean  a 
dead  world  without  ends  and  values,  —  laws, 
but  no  duties ;  effects,  but  no  purposes  ;  causes, 
but  no  ideals. 

There  is  no  mental  fact  which  the  psychologist 
has  not  to  metamorphose  into  psychical  elements ; 
and  as  this  transformation  is  logically  valuable, 
his  psychical  elements  and  their  associative  and 
inhibitory  play  are  scientifically  true.  But  a 
psychical  element,  and  anything  which  is  thought 
as  combination  of  psychical  elements  and  as 
working  under  the  laws  of  these  psychical  con- 
structions, has  as  little  reality  as  have  the  atoms 
of  the  physicist.  Our  body  is  not  a  heap  of 
atoms  ;  our  inner  life  is  still  less  a  heap  of  ideas 
and  feelings  and  emotions  and  volitions  and 
judgments,  if  we  take  these  mental  things  in  the 
way  the  psychologist  has  to  take  them,  as  con- 
tents of  consciousness  made  up  from  psychical 
elements.  If  it  is  understood  that  the  function 
of  any  naturalistic  science  is  not  to  discover  a 
reality  which  is  more  real  than  our  life  and  its 


22  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

immediate  battlefield,  but  only  to  transform  the 
reality  in  a  special  way,  then  it  must  be  clear 
that  the  demands  of  our  real  life  can  never  be 
contradicted  by  the  outcome  of  the  empirical 
sciences.  The  sciences,  therefore,  find  their 
way  free  to  advance  without  fear  till  they  have 
mastered  and  transmuted  the  physical  and  the 
psychical  universe. 

But  we  can  go  a  step  farther.  A  contradic- 
tion is  the  more  impossible  since  this  transforma- 
tion is  itself  under  the  influence  of  the  elements 
of  real  life,  and  by  that  the  apparent  ruler 
becomes  the  vassal.  If  psychology  pretends 
that  there  is  no  really  logical  value,  no  absolute 
truth,  because  everything  shows  itself  under 
psychological  laws,  we  must  answer.  This  very 
fact,  that  we  consider  even  logical  thinking 
from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  and  that 
we  have  psychology  at  all,  is  only  an  outcome  of 
the  primary  truth  that  we  have  logical  ends  and 
purposes.  Logical  thinking  creates  psychology 
for  its  own  ends ;  psychology  cannot  be  itself 
the  basis  for  logical  thinking.  And  if  psy- 
chology denies  all  values  because  they  prove 
to  be  psychical  fancies  only,  we  must  confess 
that  this  striving  for  the  understanding  of  the 
world  by  transforming  it  through  our  science 
would  have  no  meaning  if  it  were  not  work 
toward  an  end  which  we  appreciate  as  valuable. 
Every   act   of   thought,   every   affirmation   and 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND  LIFE  23 

denial,  every  yes  or  no  which  constitutes  a  scien- 
tific judgment,  is  an  act  of  a  will  which  ac- 
knowledges the  over-individual  obHgation  to 
decide  so,  and  not  otherwise,  —  acknowledges 
an  "  ought,"  and  works  thus  for  duty.  Far 
■from  allowing  psychology  to  doubt  whether  the 
real  life  has  duties,  we  must  understand  that 
there  is  no  psychology,  no  science,  no  thought, 
no  doubt,  which  does  not  by  its  very  appearance 
solemnly  acknowledge  that  it  is  the  child  of 
duties.  Psychology  may  dissolve  our  will  and 
our  personality  and  our  freedom,  and  it  is  con- 
strained by  duty  to  do  so,  but  it  must  not  forget 
that  it  speaks  only  of  that  will  and  that  person- 
ality which  are  by  metamorphosis  substituted  for 
the  personality  and  the  will  of  real  Hfe,  and  that 
it  is  this  real  personality  and  its  free  will  which 
create  psychology  in  the  service  of  its  ends  and 
aims  and  ideals. 


In  emphasizing  thus  the  will  as  the  bearer  of 
all  science  and  thought,  we  have  reached  the 
point  from  which  we  can  see  the  full  relations 
between  life  and  psychology.  In  the  real  life 
we  are  willing  subjects  whose  reality  is  given  in 
our  will  attitudes,  in  our  liking  and  disliking, 
loving  and  hating,  affirming  and  denying,  agree- 
ing and  fighting  ;  and  as  these  attitudes  overlap 
and  bind  one  another,  this  willing  personaHty 


24  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

has  unity.  We  know  ourselves  by  feeling  our- 
selves as  those  willing  subjects ;  we  do  not  per- 
ceive that  will  in  ourselves;  we  will  it.  But 
do  we  perceive  the  other  subjects  ?  No,  as  little 
as  ourselves.  In  real  life,  the  other  subjects  also 
are  not  perceived,  but  acknowledged ;  wherever 
subjective  attitudes  stir  us  up,  and  ask  for 
agreement  or  disagreement,  there  we  appreciate 
personalities.  These  attitudes  of  the  subjects 
turn  toward  a  world  of  objects,  —  a  world  which 
means  in  real  life  a  world  of  tools  and  helps  and 
obstacles  and  ends ;  in  short,  a  world  of  objects 
of  appreciation.  .  , 

Do  those  subjects  and  their  objects  exist  ? 
No,  they  do  not  exist.  I  do  not  mean  that  thej 
are  a  fairy  tale;  even  the  figures  of  the  fair;^ 
tale  are  for  the  instant  thought  as  existing.  The 
real  world  we  live  in  has  no  existence,  because  it 
has  a  form  of  reality  which  is  endlessly  fuller 
and  richer  than  that  shadow  of  reality  which 
we  mean  by  existence.  Existence  of  an  object 
means  that  it  is  a  possible  object  of  mere  passive 
perception ;  in  real  life,  there  is  no  passive  per- 
ception, but  only  active  appreciation,  and  to 
think  anything  as  object  of  perception  only 
means  a  transmutation  by  which  reality  evapo- 
rates. Whatever  is  thought  as  existing  cannot 
have  reality.  Our  real  will  does  not  exist,  either 
as  a  substance  which  lasts  or  as  a  process  which  is 
going  on ;  but  our  will  is  valid,  and  has  a  form 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   LIFE  25 

of  reality  which  cannot  be  described  because  it  is 
the  last  foothold  of  all  description  and  agree- 
ment. Whoever  has  not  known  himself  as  will- 
ing cannot  learn  by  description  what  kind  of 
reality  is  given  to  us  in  that  act  of  life ;  but 
whoever  has  willed  knows  that  the  act  means 
something  else  than  the  fact  that  some  object  of 
passive  perception  was  in  consciousness ;  in 
short,  he  knows  a  reality  which  means  more  than 
existence. 

The  existing  world,  then,  does  not  lack  reality 
because  it  is  merely  a  shadow  of  a  world  beyond 
it,  a  shadow  of  a  Platonistic  world  of  potentiali- 
ties. No,  it  is  a  shadow  of  a  real  world,  which 
stands  not  farther  from  us,  but  still  nearer  to  us, 
than  the  existing  world.  The  world  we  will  is 
the  reality ;  the  world  we  perceive  is  the  de- 
duced, and  therefore  unreal  system  ;  and  the 
world  of  potential  forms  and  relations,  as  it  is 
deduced  from  this  perceivable  system,  is  a  con- 
struction of  a  still  higher  degree  of  unreality. 
The  potentialities  that  form  the  only  possible 
metaphysical  background  of  reality  are  not  the 
potentialities  of  existing  objects,  but  the  poten- 
tialities of  will  acts.  This  world  of  not  existing 
but  valid  subjective  will  relations  is  the  only 
world  which  history  and  society,  morality  and 
philosophy,  have  to  deal  with. 

The  willing  subjects  and  their  mutual  rela- 
tions are  the  only  matter  history  can  speak  of, 


26  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

but  not  those  subjects  thought  as  perceivable 
existing  objects ;  no,  as  willing  subjects  whose 
reality  we  can  understand,  not  by  describing 
their  physical  or  psychical  elements,  but  by 
interpreting  and  appreciating  their  purposes  and 
means.  The  stones,  the  animals,  even  the  sav- 
ages, have  no  history  ;  only  where  a  network  of 
individual  will  relations  can  be  acknowledged 
by  our  will  have  we  really  history  ;  and  our  own 
historical  position  means  the  system  of  will  atti- 
tudes by  which  we  acknowledge  other  willing 
subjects.  To  be  sure,  history,  like  every  other 
science,  must  go  from  the  raw  material  of  single 
facts  to  generalities ;  but  if  we  are  in  a  world  of 
not  existing  but  valid  realities,  the  generalities 
cannot  be  laws,  but  will  relations  of  more  and 
more  general  importance.  Existing  processes  are 
scientifically  generalized  by  laws  ;  valid  relations 
are  generaHzed  by  more  and  more  embracing 
relations.  The  aim  of  the  real  historian,  there- 
fore, is,  not  to  copy  the  natural  laws  of  physics 
and  social  psychology,  but  to  work  out  the  more 
and  more  general  inner  relations  of  mankind  by 
following  up  the  will  influence  of  great  men,  tiL 
finally  the  philosophy  of  history  shall  comprise 
this  total  development  from  paradise  to  the  day 
of  judgment  by  one  all-embracing  will  connec- 
tion. Thus  history  in  all  its  departments,  his- 
tory of  politics  and  constitutions,  of  art  and 
science,  of  language  and  law,  has  as  its  object 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  27 

the  system  of  those  human  will  relations  which 
we  ourselves  as  willing  subjects  acknowledge, 
and  which  are  for  us  objects  of  understanding, 
of  interpretation,  of  appreciation,  even  of  criti- 
cism, but  not  objects  of  description  and  expla- 
nation, as  they  are  valid  subjective  will  func- 
tions, not  existing  perceivable  objects. 

History  speaks  only  of  those  will  acts  which 
are  acknowledged  as  merely  individual.  We 
know  other  will  acts  in  ourselves  which  we  will 
with  an  over-individual  meaning,  those  attitudes 
we  take  when  we  feel  ourselves  beyond  the 
domain  of  our  purely  personal  wishes.  The  will 
remains  our  own,  but  its  significance  transcends 
our  individual  attitudes ;  it  has  an  over-individ- 
ual value ;  we  call  it  our  duty.  To  be  sure,  our 
duty  is  our  own  central  will ;  there  is  no  duty 
which  comes  from  the  outside.  The  order  which 
comes  from  outside  is  force  which  seduces  or 
threatens  us  ;  duty  lies  only  in  ourselves  ;  it  is 
our  own  will,  but  our  will  in  so  far  as  we  are 
creators  of  an  over-individual  attitude. 

If  the  system  of  our  individual  will  acts  is  in- 
terpreted and  connected  in  the  historical  sciences, 
the  system  of  our  over-individual  will  acts  is 
interpreted  and  connected  in  the  normative 
sciences,  logic,  aesthetics,  ethics,  and  philosophy 
of  relifirion.  Log-ic  treats  of  the  over-individual 
will  acts  of  affirming  the  world,  aesthetics  of 
those   of    appreciating    the    world,    rehgion    of 


28  PSYCHOLOGiT  AND  LIFE 

those  of  transcending  the  world,  ethics  of  those 
of  acting  for  the  world  ;  and  in  virtue  of  this 
attitude  also  are  constituted  all  the  side  branches 
of  ethics,  as  jurisprudence  and  pedagogy.  All 
treat  of  over-individual  valid  will  relations,  and 
no  one  has  therefore  directly  to  deal  with  exist- 
ing psychical  objects.  On  the  basis  of  these 
normative  sciences  the  idealistic  philosophy  has 
to  build  up  its  metaphysical  system,  which  may 
connect  the  disconnected  will  attitudes  of  our 
ethical,  sesthetical,  religious,  and  logical  duties 
Ml  one  ideal  dome  of  thoughts.  But  however 
we  may  formulate  this  logically  ultimate  source 
of  all  reality,  we  know  at  least  one  thing  surely, 
that  we  have  deprived  it  of  all  meaning  and  of 
all  values  and  of  all  dignity,  if  we  picture  it  as 
something  which  exists.  The  least  creature  of 
all  mortals,  acknowledged  as  a  wilhng  subject, 
has  more  dignity  and  value  than  even  an  al- 
mighty God,  if  he  is  thought  of  merely  as  a 
gigantic  psychological  mechanism ;  that  is,  as 
an  object  the  reality  of  which  has  the  form  of 

existence. 

VI 

How  do  we  come,  then,  to  the  idea  of  exist- 
ing objects?  There  is  no  difficulty  in  under- 
standing that.  Our  life  is  will,  and  our  will  has 
its  duties ;  but  every  action  turns  toward  those 
means  and  obstacles  and  ends,  those  objects  of 
appreciation,  which  are  material  for  our  will  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  29 

our  duties.  Every  act  is  thus  a  cooperation  of 
subjects  and  subjectively  appreciated  objects ; 
we  cannot  fulfill  our  duty,  therefore,  if  we  do 
not  know  what  we  have  to  expect  from  the 
objects  in  this  cooperation.  There  must  arise, 
then,  the  will  to  isolate  our  expectation  about 
the  objects ;  that  is,  to  think  what  we  should 
have  to  expect  from  the  objects  if  they  were  inde- 
pendent of  the  willing  subjects.  In  reality,  they 
are  never  independent ;  in  our  thoughts,  we  can 
cut  them  loose  from  the  willing  subjects,  and 
think  of  them  as  objects  which  are  not  any  more 
objects  of  appreciation,  but  objects  of  perception 
only.  These  objects  in  their  artificial  separation 
from  the  real  subject,  thought  of  as  objects  of  a 
passive  spectator,  take  by  that  change  a  form 
which  we  call  existence,  and  it  is  the  aim  of  nat- 
ural science  to  study  these  existing  things.  The 
path  of  their  study  is  indicated  to  them  by  the 
goal  they  try  to  reach.  They  have  to  determine 
the  expectations  the  objects  bring  up  ;  at  first, 
therefore,  they  look  out  for  those  features  of  the 
objects  which  suggest  the  different  expectations, 
and  natural  science  calls  these  features  of  the 
objects  their  elements.  These  elements  are  not 
really  in  the  objects,  but  they  represent  all  that 
which  determines  the  possible  variations  of  the 
objects  in  the  future.  Thus  science  considers 
the  present  thing  a  combination  of  elements  to 
determine  its  relation  to  the  future  thing ;  but 


jJO  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  LIFE 

the  present  thing  is,  then,  itself  the  future  of 
the  past  thing,  and  it  stands,  in  consequence, 
between  past  and  future ;  that  is,  as  a  Hnk  in  a 
chain  in  which  everything  is  determining  the 
future  and  determined  by  the  past,  everything 
cause  and  everything  effect. 

Natural  science  finds  in  this  attempt  that 
there  may  be  two  classes  of  such  existing  ob- 
jects :  objects  which  are  possible,  perceivable 
objects  for  every  subject,  and  others  which  are 
perceivable  only  for  one  subject.  Natural  sci- 
ence calls  the  first  group  physical  objects,  the 
second  group  psychical  objects,  and  separates 
the  study  of  them,  as  this  relation  to  the  one  or 
the  many  brings  with  it  numerous  characteristic 
differences,  the  differences  between  physics  and 
psychology.  But  the  point  of  view  for  both  is 
exactly  the  same  ;  both  consider  their  material 
as  merely  perceivable  objects  which  are  made  up 
from  elements,  and  which  determine  one  another 
by  causal  connections.  Since  they  are  thought 
as  cut  loose  from  the  attitude  of  the  will,  neither 
the  physical  nor  the  psychical  objects  can  have 
values  or  teleological  relations. 

But  the  will  itself  ?  If  psychology,  like  phy- 
sics, deals  with  the  objects  of  the  world  in  their 
artificial  separation  from  the  will,  how  can  the 
will  itself  be  an  object  of  psychology  ?  The 
presupposition  of  this  question  is  in  some  way 
wrong ;  the  will  is  primarily  not  at  all  an  object 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  31 

of  psychology.  The  real  psychological  objects 
are  the  ideas  of  our  perception  and  memory  and 
imagination  and  reason.  Only  if  psychology 
progresses,  it  must  come  to  the  point  where  it 
undertakes  to  consider  every  factor  of  our  men- 
tal life  from  a  psychological  point  of  view  ;  that 
is,  as  an  object  made  up  from  atomistic  elements 
which  the  psychologist  calls  sensations.  The 
will  is  not  a  possible  object ;  psychology  must 
make  a  substitution,  therefore  ;  it  identifies  the 
real  personality  with  the  psychophysical  organ- 
ism, and  calls  the  will  the  set  of  conditions 
which  psychologically  and  physiologically  deter- 
mines the  actions  of  this  organism.  Now  this 
will,  too,  is  made  up  of  sensations,  —  muscle  sen- 
sations and  others ;  and  this  will  depends  upon 
psychological  laws,  is  the  effect  of  conditions 
and  the  cause  of  effects ;  it  is  ironed  with  the 
chains  of  natural  laws  to  the  rock  of  neces- 
sity. The  real  will  is  not  a  perceivable  object, 
and  therefore  neither  cause  nor  effect,  but  has 
its  meaning  and  its  value  in  itself ;  it  is  not  an 
exception  to  the  world  of  laws  and  causes ;  no, 
there  would  not  be  any  meaning  in  asking  whe- 
ther it  has  a  cause  or  not,  as  only  existing  ob- 
jects can  belong  to  the  series  of  causal  relations. 
The  real  will  is  free,  and  it  is  the  work  of  such 
free  will  to  picture,  for  its  own  purposes,  the 
world  as  an  unfree,  a  causally  connected,  an 
existing  system  ;  and  if  it  is  the  triumph  of  mod' 


32  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

ern  psychology  to  master  even  the  best  In  man, 
the  will,  and  to  dissolve  even  the  will  into  its 
atomistic  sensations  and  their  causal  unfree  play, 
we  are  blind  if  we  forget  that  this  transforma- 
tion and  construction  is  itself  the  work  of  the 
will  which  dictates  ends,  and  the  finest  herald  of 
its  freedom. 

Of  course,  as  soon  as  the  psychologist  enters 
into  the  study  of  the  will,  he  has  absolutely  to 
abstract  from  the  fact  that  a  complicated  substi- 
tution is  the  presupposition  for  his  work.  He 
has  now  to  consider  the  will  as  if  it  were  really 
composed  of  sensational  elements,  and  as  if  his 
analysis  discovered  them.  The  will  is  for  him 
really  a  complex  of  sensations ;  that  is,  a  com- 
plex of  possible  elements  of  perceptive  ideas. 
As  soon  as  the  psychologist,  as  such,  acknow- 
ledges in  the  analysis  of  the  will  a  factor  which 
is  not  a  possible  element  of  perception,  he  de- 
stroys the  possibility  of  psychology  just  as  much 
as  the  physicist  who  acknowledges  miracles  in 
the  explanation  of  the  material  world  denies 
physics.  There  is  nothing  more  absurd  than  to 
blame  the  psychologist  because  his  account  of 
the  will  does  not  do  justice  to  the  whole  reality 
of  it,  and  to  believe  that  it  is  a  chmax  of  forci- 
ble arguments  against  the  atomizing  psychology 
of  to-day  if  philosophers  exclaim  that  there  is 
no  real  will  at  all  in  those  compounds  of  sensa- 
tions which  the  psychologist  substitutes.     Cer- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE  33 


tainly  not,  as  it  was  just  the  presupposition  of 
psychology  to  abstract  from  that  real  will.  It  is 
not  wiser  than  to  cast  up  against  the  physicist 
that  his  moving  atoms  do  not  represent  the  phys- 
ical world  because  they  have  no  color  and  sound 
and  smell.  If  they  sounded  and  smelled  still, 
the  physicist  would  not  have  fulfilled  his  pur- 
pose. 

Psychology  can  mean  an  end,  and  can  mean 
also  a  beginning.  It  may  be,  and  in  this  cen- 
tury, indeed,  has  been,  the  last  word  of  a  natu- 
ralistic attitude  toward  the  world,  —  an  atti- 
tude which  emphasized  only  what  is  expected 
from  the  objects,  and  neglected  the  duties  of  the 
subjects.  But  psychology  degenerates  into  an 
unphilosophical  psychologism,  just  as  natural  sci- 
ence degenerates  into  materialism,  if  it  does  not 
understand  that  it  works  only  from  one  side,  and 
that  the  other  side,  the  reality  which  is  not  ex- 
istence, and  therefore  no  possible  object  of  psy- 
chology and  natural  science,  is  the  primary  real- 
ity. Psychology  may  be  also  a  beginning.  It 
can  mean  that  we  ought  to  abandon  exaggerated 
devotion  for  the  physical  world,  that  we  ought 
to  look  out  for  our  inner  world ;  a  good  psycho- 
logy is  then  the  most  important  supplement  to 
those  sciences  which  consider  the  inner  life,  not 
as  an  existing,  describable,  explainable  object,  but 
as  a  will  system  to  be  interpreted  and  to  be  ap- 
preciated.    If  that  is  the  attitude,  the  psycho- 


34  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE 

logical  sciences  on  the  one  side,  the  historical 
and  normative  sciences  on  the  other  side,  can 
really  do  justice  to  the  totality  of  the  problems 
of  the  inner  life.  If  psychology  tries  to  stand 
on  both  sides,  its  end  must  be  near  -,  the  real  life 
will  tear  it  up  and  rend  it  in  pieces.  If  it  stands 
with  strong  feet  on  the  one  side,  and  acknow- 
ledges the  right  of  the  other  side,  it  will  have  a 
future.  The  psychology  of  our  time  too  often 
seems  determined  to  die  out  in  psychologism ; 
that  must  be  stopped.  Psychology  is  an  end  as 
the  last  word  of  the  naturalistic  century  which 
lies  behind  us;  it  may  become  a  beginning  as 
the  introductory  word  of  an  idealistic  century  to 
be  hoped  for. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 


In  the  opinion  of  the  public  the  most  charac- 
teristic feature  of  the  present  psychology  is  its 
association  with  physiology  ;  the  questions  in  re- 
gard to  the  mind,  which  in  earlier  times  belonged 
to  the  domains  of  the  philosopher  only,  are  now 
to  be  answered  by  inquiries  as  to  the  functions  of 
the  brain.  This  new  situation  has  everywhere 
stirred  up  feelings  of  hope  and  feelings  of  fear ; 
the  hope  in  the  hearts  of  enthusiastic  admirers 
of  natural  science,  the  fear  in  the  souls  of  those 
for  whom  the  ethical  values  of  life  stand  fore- 
most. Each  of  these  two  antagonistic  feelings 
is  based  on  a  popular  doctrine,  and  these  two 
doctrines  have  absolutely  nothing  in  common 
beyond  the  one  fact  that  both  are  equally  mis- 
taken. 

The  hope-inspiring  theory  of  the  progressive 
friends  of  psychology  is  that  brain  physiology 
alone  can  teach  us  the  real  constitution  of  men- 
tal life,  as  the  brain  is  a  perceivable,  palpable 
thing  which  can  be  dissected  and  microscopically 
examined,  while  the  soul  is  a  merely  hypotheti- 


36  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

cal  construction  of  the  metaphysicians.  All  the 
so-called  knowledge  of  psychical  life  must  thus 
be  vague  and  foggy,  and  all  exact  and  scientific 
knowledge  of  it  must  thus  date  from  the  time 
when  the  ganglion  cells  and  association  fibres 
were  discovered  to  be  the  causes  of  mental 
action.  The  fear-suggesting  theory  of  the  more 
conservative  friends  of  psychology  does  not  deny 
that  many  psychical  acts  are  dependent  upon 
bodily  functions,  but  while  the  others  welcome 
the  fact  as  an  instrument  of  science,  they  de- 
spise it  as  an  obstacle  to  an  ethical  life.  All  our 
duties  depend  upon  the  freedom  of  our  deci- 
sions, and  if  it  can  be  shown  that  our  whole 
mental  life  is  determined  by  the  physiological 
processes  in  our  brain,  then  the  claim  of  free- 
dom is  meaningless ;  we  stand  then  fully  under 
the  mechanical  laws  which  move  the  molecules 
in  our  body.  The  necessary  and  logical  conse- 
quence is  that  it  must  be  a  gain  for  morality  to 
show  that  at  least  some  psychical  functions,  the 
feelings  for  instance,  or  the  attention  or  the 
volitions,  may  be  independent  of  intermingling 
ganglion  cells.  The  first  view  thus  leads  natu- 
rally to  the  wish  to  find  as  many  relations  be- 
tween mind  and  brain  as  possible ;  the  second 
view  must  lead  to  the  opposite  wish  that  such 
relations  may  finally  be  recognized  as  incomplete 
and  full  of  exceptions. 

The  mistake  of  the  psychophysiological  enthu- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   PHYSIOLOGY  37 

slasts  lies  more  on  the  surface  than  that  of  the 
accusers.  We  are  told  that  we  are  to  expect 
an  exact  knowledge  of  the  psychical  facts  from 
our  knowledge  of  the  brain ;  but  what  in  the 
world  can  we  know  better  than  the  objects  of 
our  immediate  self -observation  ?  The  observa- 
tion and  analysis  of  our  mental  facts  is  in  no 
way  dependent  upon  a  hypothesis  in  regard  to 
the  soul ;  it  is  the  most  direct  object  of  our  at- 
tention, and  we  thus  know  endlessly  more  about 
our  psychical  facts  than  about  the  functions  of 
the  brain.  Even  two  thousand  years  ago  the 
chief  mental  facts  were  well  known,  while  the 
most  fundamental  questions  of  brain  physiology 
are  still  to-day  under  lively  discussion.  Above 
all,  the  history  of  science  shows  how  in  the  times 
of  their  cooperation  psychology  always  had  to 
give  and  physiology  to  take ;  light  had  to  be 
thrown  from  the  side  of  the  well-known  psy- 
chological facts  upon  the  obscure  physiological 
facts,  and  never  in  the  opposite  direction.  The 
consequence  of  this  situation  is  that  psychologists 
in  their  work  of  analysis  and  research  into  the 
constitution  of  the  psychical  facts  have  not  the 
shghtest  reason  for  inquiring  into  any  accom- 
panying brain  processes ;  they  cannot  learn  from 
that  side  anything  which  they  do  not  know  bet- 
ter from  self-observation  and  the  observation  of 
others.  Whether  a  special  mental  act  occurs  in 
one  part  of   the  brain  or  in  another,   whether 


38  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

the  cells  or  the  fibres  are  engaged,  whether  the 
processes  are  similar  to  the  physical  movements 
in  an  electric  wire  or  to  the  physiological  actions 
in  an  amoeboid  organism,  whether  the  sensory 
and  motor  centres  are  separate  or  identical,  and 
a  hundred  similar  questions  which  stand  in  the 
foreground  of  interest  for  the  doctrine  of  psy- 
chophysiological relations  are  all  equally  indif- 
ferent for  the  study  of  the  psychical  facts  as 
such.  The  increase  of  scientific  exactitude  must 
come  from  the  use  of  more  refined  methods  in 
self-observation,  and  all  the  work  done  in  our 
modern  laboratories  of  experimental  psychology 
is  in  the  service  of  this  endeavor,  while  the 
methods  of  histology  and  comparative  anatomy, 
of  pathology  and  vivisectional  physiology,  all 
indispensable  for  the  psychophysiological  pro- 
blems, are  unknown,  and  ought  to  remain  un- 
known, in  our  psychological  laboratories.  The 
hope  that  physiological  psychology  will  give  us 
a  f uUer  acquaintance  with  the  psychological  facts 
as  such  is  therefore  an  illusion. 

But  not  less  misleading  is  the  fear  that  the 
system  of  physiological  psychology  may  inter- 
fere with  the  values  of  our  practical  life.  It 
stands  and  falls  with  the  conviction  that  the  psy- 
chical facts  which  are  conceived  as  dependent 
upon  the  brain  machinery  are  the  real  inner 
experience  which  embraces  our  duties  and  re- 
BponsibiHties.     A  philosophical  inquiry  into  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  39 

relations  of  psychology  to  reality  cannot  leave 
any  doubt  that  such  a  belief  is  untenable.  In 
our  real  hfe  our  objects  of  action  are  not  ideas 
which  are  separated  from  the  physical  things, 
but  the  physical  and  psychical  objects  form  one 
undifferentiated  object  of  will,  which  from  merely 
secondary  logical  motives  is  divided  into  a  physi- 
cal and  psychical  part,  and  is  then  conceived  as 
independent  of  the  acts  of  the  subject.  And 
these  acts  themselves  are  also  never  given  to  us 
as  contents  of  consciousness,  never  as  objects, 
but  as  functions  which  we  feel  and  live  through. 
Objects  and  subjective  acts  are  thus  alike  trans- 
formed into  something  which  they  never  are  in 
reality  as  soon  as  the  objects  are  conceived  as 
severed  from  the  will  and  differentiated  into 
physical  and  psychical  parts  and  the  subjective 
acts  are  conceived  as  psychical  objects.  All  this 
psychology  must  do  in  the  interest  of  special 
logical  purposes  of  which  we  shall  examine  later 
some  of  the  motives  and  some  of  the  conse- 
quences. But  whatever  the  motives  may  be,  it 
is  clear  that  this  construction  of  psychical  ob' 
jects,  which  precedes  all  special  psychological 
work,  excludes  from  the  start  the  possibility  that 
any  connection  and  relation  into  which  these 
psychical  facts  enter  can  decide  about  the  rela- 
tions and  connections  of  the  real  life. 

There  is  thus  no  emotional  interest  involved 
in  the  question  whether  a  smaller  or  a  larger 


40  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

part  of  the  psychical  facts  must  be  conceived  as 
the  accompaniment  of  brain  functions;  the 
problem  is  merely  logical  and  theoretical,  as  are 
also  the  considerations  which  lead  to  the  ulti- 
mate answer  of  the  question.  It  is  true  that 
the  naturalists  and  psychologists  themselves  are 
mostly  inclined,  in  the  eagerness  of  their  special- 
istic  work,  to  overlook  and  to  ignore  this  logical 
basis  of  the  relations,  and  to  be  satisfied  with  a 
merely  empirical  foundation.  The  relation  be- 
tween mind  and  brain  seems  to  them  a  fact  of 
observation,  a  chance  fact  whose  limits  must  be 
found  by  careful  inquiry  of  the  verifiable  occur- 
rences. They  are  not  conscious  of  the  deeper 
spring  of  this  inquiry;  they  follow  their  scien- 
tific instinct  as  discoverers,  and  do  not  feel  that 
this  instinct  is  controlled  by  logical  demands 
which  decide  what  in  the  realm  of  observation 
ought  to  be  acknowledged  as  fact,  and  what 
ought  to  be  transformed  till  it  satisfies  the  theo- 
retical postulates. 

II 

Of  course  even  the  layman  is  familiar  with 
plenty  of  instances  in  which  the  empirical  facts 
suggest  the  view  that  the  psychical  facts  some- 
how depend  upon  the  brain.  Popularly  best 
known  are  the  abnormal  processes.  A  man  be- 
comes bhnd  or  deaf  if  special  parts  of  the  brain 
are  destroyed  by  a  hemorrhage ;  his  intelligence 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  41 

becomes  disintegrated  if  he  suffers  from  para- 
lysis of  the  brain  ;  the  brain  state  of  sleep  brings 
with  it  the  psychical  wonders  of  dreams ;  a  blow 
on  the  head  may  induce  a  state  of  fainting  in 
which  all  mental  life  disappears ;  and  chemical 
substances  introduced  into  the  blood  circulation 
of  the  brain  change  our  moods  and  emotions. 
Such  generally  known  experiences  are  supple- 
mented by  more  compHcated  facts  from  all  quar- 
ters. The  mental  life  of  animals  shows  itself 
to  be  parallel  in  its  development  to  the  differen- 
tiation of  the  central  nervous  system ;  the  facul- 
ties of  human  individuals  appear  to  correspond 
to  a  full  development  of  the  brain,  the  mental 
life  of  the  idiot  to  belong  to  a  brain  of  inhibited 
growth.  To  this  class  of  facts  belong  all  the 
experiments  of  the  physiologist  who  shows  that 
the  artificial  extirpation  of  a  special  centre  in 
the  hemispheres  of  the  brain  destroys  the  peri- 
pheral function,  a  function  which,  on  the  other 
hand,  can  be  artificially  produced  by  an  electrical 
stimulation  of  the  intact  centre.  Here  belong 
also  the  observations  of  comparative  anatomy, 
which  prove  the  development  of  special  brain 
parts  to  be  increased  or  decreased  in  different 
animal  groups  according  to  the  higher  or  lower 
state  of  special  psychical  functions ;  for  instance, 
the  high  development  of  the  olfactory  lobe  in 
animals  which  have  a  fine  sense  of  smell.  The 
most  different  methods  here  work  together  to 


42  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

make  the  collection  of  a  large  number  of  detailed 
facts  possible,  and  yet  the  psychologist  follows 
a  wrong  track  if  he  believes  that  the  results 
which  are  yielded  by  such  methods  must  be  de- 
cisive for  his  psychophysical  convictions. 

If  the  question  were  really  a  merely  empirical 
one,  we  should  be  obliged  to  limit  the  extension 
of  the  psychophysical  parallelism  to  the  few 
psychological  processes  for  which  the  natural 
sciences  have  already  found  the  physiological 
substratum,  but  in  that  moment  all  the  interest 
of  the  psychologist  would  disappear.  He  ac- 
knowledges, in  response  to  a  logical  demand,  that 
every  single  psychical  fact  has  its  physiological 
counterpart  or  the  whole  inquiry  becomes  a  use- 
less and  time-wasting  luxury.  Whether  the  psy- 
chophysical connections  have  one  exception  or 
a  million  is  indifferent ;  the  belief  that  the  con- 
nection exists  without  exception  is  the  chain  on 
which  the  whole  pyschophysical  system  hangs, 
and  it  must  fall  if  the  chain  is  broken,  whether 
broken  once  or  a  thousand  times.  If  it  were 
otherwise  —  that  is,  if  the  psychophysical  con- 
nections were  merely  results  of  empirical  observa- 
tion —  they  would  form  an  appendix  to  scientific 
psychology  which  would  be  at  least  unnecessary 
for  the  real  psychological  work.  Psychology  de- 
scribes and  explains  the  psychological  facts ;  it 
is  therefore  not  its  task  to  study  anything  which 
Ues  outside  of  the   field  of  psychical  facts,  if 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND  PHYSIOLOGY  43 

such  extension  to  the  non-psychical  facts  is  rot 
logically  necessary  for  the  study  of  the  psychical 
facts  themselves.  The  study  of  the  connections 
between  mind  and  body  would  then  stand  as  a 
special  empirical  science  between  psychology 
and  physics,  but  it  would  not  be  a  part  of  psy- 
chology itself.  Such,  however,  is  not  the  case. 
Psychology  needs  the  psychophysical  connection 
for  its  own  special  work,  needs  it  as  a  logical  sup- 
position without  which  it  cannot  fulfill  its  proper 
task,  and  it  therefore  acknowledges  the  complete- 
ness of  the  connection  independent  of  the  special 
empirical  observations.  Psychophysical  paral- 
lelism brings  with  it  no  ethical  danger  and  no 
materialistic  consequences,  because  the  connected 
objects  do  not  belong  to  reality,  and  are  merely 
theoretical  constructions  for  special  logical  pur- 
poses ;  but  in  these  constructed  systems  the  con- 
nection is  absolutely  complete  and  exceptionless 
or  it  is  altogether  useless  for  psychology.  The 
decoration  of  our  psychological  lecture  courses 
with  pretty  physiological  bric-a-brac  and  the 
trimming  up  of  our  text-books  with  physiologi- 
cal wood-cuts  can  hardly  be  admitted  as  an  end 
in  itself. 

Why  does  the  psychologist  transcend  the  lim- 
its of  the  psychical  world  and  look  over  into  the 
physical  world,  which  is,  as  the  name  indicates, 
never  the  direct  object  of  his  interests?  The 
usual  answer  is  that  the  psychical  facts  need  the 


44  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

physical  substratum  for  their  explanation  ;  but  1 
think  we  can  go  a  long  step  farther  and  say  that 
even  the  description  of  the  psychical  facts  needs 
and  constantly  presupposes  the  reference  to  the 
physical  world,  and  that  it  is  therefore  an  illusion 
to  beheve  that  psychology  can  fulfill  at  least  the 
first  part  of  its  work,  the  description  of  its 
material,  without  transgressing  the  boundaries 
of  consciousness. 

Ill 

Description  means  the  communication  of  an 
object  by  the  communication  of  its  elements. 
Other  ways  of  communication  are  open,  but 
only  that  method  which  analyzes  the  object  into 
elements  and  fixates  the  elements  for  the  pur- 
pose of  communication  is  a  description.  The 
choice  of  the  elements  and  their  fixation  also  can 
of  course  reach  very  different  levels.  We  may 
analyze  an  animal  by  separating  the  chief  parts 
which  we  perceive  from  the  outside,  or  we  may 
tear  it  in  pieces  to  find  out  the  inner  parts  also ; 
we  may  make  a  careful  anatomical  dissection 
which  separates  the  different  tissues,  or  we  may 
advance  to  a  histological  analysis  which  discrimi- 
nates the  different  microscopical  cells.  The  de- 
scription thus  stands  the  higher  the  more  our 
choice  of  elements  takes  account  of  the  causal 
connections,  but  even  the  most  popular  and  un- 
scientific report  describes  on  the  basis  of  an  ana- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  46 

lysis.  In  the  same  way  the  fixation  of  the  ele- 
ments to  be  communicated  may  be  increasingly 
accurate :  we  may  be  satisfied  to  describe  the 
color  or  the  form  of  the  parts  of  the  animal  by 
using  the  names  of  general  conceptions  which 
include  many  similar  objects,  calling  it  green  or 
oval,  or  we  may  advance  to  a  determination  of 
the  number  of  ether  vibrations  and  make  mea- 
surement of  the  dimensions  in  thousandths  of  a 
millimeter :  the  principle  remains  the  same. 

How  far  can  we  describe  psychological  objects 
in  the  same  way,  —  an  idea,  for  instance  ?  A 
corresponding  analysis  is  certainly  possible.  We 
cannot  really  isolate  the  psychical  elements,  but 
we  can  certainly  separate  them  in  consciousness, 
turning"  the  attention  to  one  element  after  the 
other,  in  our  self-observation.  Here  also  many 
stages  are  possible ;  the  highest  stage,  corre- 
sponding to  the  microscopical  analysis  of  the 
anatomist,  is  reached  by  self-observation  under 
the  experimental  conditions  which  our  laborato- 
ries furnish,  —  in  other  words,  the  analysis  may 
approach  more  and  more  nearly  those  elements 
which  are  the  necessary  footholds  for  the  ex- 
planation of  the  facts ;  but  in  any  case  there  is 
no  theoretical  objection  to  the  analysis  of  mental 
facts.  Quite  different  is  the  second  factor  of 
the  descriptive  process,  the  fixation  of  these  ele- 
ments for  the  purpose  of  communication.  We 
can  say  without  limitation :  a  psychical  element 


46  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

can  never  be  directly  communicated,  because 
communication  presupposes  the  possibility  of  a 
lautual  sharing  in  the  object  of  experience, 
while  the  psychical  objects  are  from  their  nature 
strictly  individual  property. 

If  we  communicate  by  other  methods  than  de- 
scription, for  instance  by  suggestion  or  gestures, 
the  other  person  takes  part  in  our  intentions  and 
purposes,  and  these  intentions  are  then  the  ob- 
ject of  the  communication.  But  these  intentions 
are  not  themselves  psychical  objects;  they  are  the 
ideal  points  towards  which  the  meaning  of  our 
ideas  is  directed,  and  the  intention  towards  which 
my  ideas  point  may  very  well  be  at  the  same 
time  the  goal  for  the  attitudes  of  the  other. 
But  we  ask  whether  the  content  of  consciousness 
itself  can  possibly  be  an  object  in  which  the  other 
can  take  part,  and  this  alone  we  deny.  What 
my  ideas  mean  and  intend  is  something  in  which 
any  other  may  participate,  but  my  ideas  them- 
selves belong  to  me  alone,  and  can,  as  psychical 
objects,  never  be  the  ideas  of  any  one  else. 
My  consciousness  is  my  castle,  and  even  if  a 
mind-reader  finds  out  my  most  hidden  thoughts, 
his  claim  does  not  mean  that  he  has  cauo-ht  a 
glimpse  within  my  castle  walls.  He  does  not 
become  conscious  of  my  psychical  contents,  but 
he  produces  in  himself  ideas  which  he  claims 
correspond  to  my  ideas;  but  not  the  slightest 
sensation  can  ever  belong  to  his  and  to  my  con- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   PHYSIOLOGY  47 

sciousness  together.  All  this  is  not  a  matter  of 
chance ;  we  cannot  think  o£  any  psychical  fact 
for  which  it  could  be  otherwise.  In  reality  the 
physical  thing  and  our  idea  of  it  are  one  object, 
and  as  soon  as  we  differentiate  it  into  a  physical 
and  psychical  part  we  have  no  other  principle  of 
division  than  this  one,  that  we  call  physical  what- 
ever is  the  possible  object  of  experience  for  sev- 
eral subjects,  and  psychical  whatever  cannot  be 
experienced  by  more  than  one.  All  the  other 
differences  are  secondary  consequences  of  this 
fundamental  principle,  and  we  have  thus  no  rea- 
son to  be  surprised  that  we  find  the  latter  true 
without  exception.  No  molecule  moves  in  the 
world  which  cannot  be  an  object  for  every  one, 
and  no  sensation  arises  in  a  consciousness  which 
can  be  shared  with  a  second  subject. 

The  difference  in  the  communication  of  physi- 
cal and  psychical  objects  is  now  evident.  How- 
ever I  may  analyze  the  physical  thing,  each  ele- 
ment is  an  object  for  me  and  my  neighbor  at 
the  same  time,  my  object  becomes  his  object 
too,  he  can  see  it,  touch  it,  hear  it  like  myself, 
and  my  communication  is  thus  a  demonstration 
which  fulfills  its  logical  purpose  in  the  most  ideal 
way,  and  my  words  have  merely  the  function 
of  directing  attention  to  the  common  property. 
But  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  physical  object 
should  be  present  to  our  senses ;  the  words  will 
fulfill  their  communicating  purpose  no  less  if 


48  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

they  refer  to  an  object  which  was  experienced  in 
earher  time,  or  if  the  objects  themselves  were 
never  given ;  at  least  their  elements  may  have 
been  shared.  Whatever  the  form  of  the  com- 
munication about  the  physical  world  may  be, 
this  reference  to  the  physical  world  as  the  object 
of  common  experience  is  always  given.  If  I  say 
it  rains,  the  other  may  never  have  seen  rain,  but 
by  the  conceptions  of  water,  sky,  globule,  falling 
and  so  forth  I  can  describe  the  rain  from  its  ele- 
ments, and  each  of  these  factors  is  understood 
through  its  relation  to  the  objective  world.  And 
if  even  these  conceptions  were  unknown,  they 
could  finally  be  described  by  the  mere  measure- 
ments in  space  and  time,  the  knowledge  of  which 
is  presupposed  in  the  acknowledgment  of  other 
subjects. 

There  is  no  one  of  those  who  perceive  the 
outer  world  to  whom  I  cannot  describe  the  rain 
and  the  snow  and  the  thunder  in  terms  of  their 
elements ;  but  how  different  if  I  wish  to  commu- 
nicate that  I  am  sorry,  or  glad,  or  afraid.  In 
practical  life  the  words  "  I  am  afraid "  do  not 
appear  less  descriptive  than  the  words  "it  rains," 
and  yet  they  have  a  quite  different  basis.  Not 
the  least  element  in  my  fear  as  psychical  content 
can  be  demonstrated  and  offered  for  participa- 
tion to  others.  Whether  they  call  fear  a  state 
which  I  call  joy  or  violet  odor  no  direct  descrip- 
tion can  decide.     However  I  may  analyze  it  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  49 

elements  of  my  fear  are  just  as  incommunicable 
as  is  the  emotion  as  a  whole. 

But  psychical  states  must  be  described  some- 
how; otherwise  the  possibility  of  psychology 
would  be  excluded.  If  they  are  not  directly 
communicable  we  must  take  refuge  in  indirect 
methods ;  if  the  psychical  facts  are  never  object 
for  two,  and  thus  strictly  individual,  we  must 
link  them  with  physical  processes  which  belong 
to  all.  We  understand  what  we  mean  by  the 
words  fear,  or  shock,  or  joy,  because  we  have 
learned  to  use  the  words  for  those  mental  states 
which  are  connected  with  special  physical  occur- 
rences. The  physical  objects  with  which  we  link 
them  may  be  foregoing  causes  or  following  ef- 
fects ;  in  any  case  we  have  an  outer  foothold 
for  them.  We  may  call  shock  the  mental  state 
which  follows  a  sudden  strong  stimulus,  or  the 
mental  state  which  precedes  a  sudden  contrac- 
tion of  the  muscles ;  either  way  is  sufficient  to 
separate  the  one  state  from  others  for  the  pur- 
poses of  practical  life.  But  it  is  clear  that  this 
method  also  is  not  only  dependent  upon  the 
merely  empirically  founded  belief  that  the  same 
causes  or  effects  are  connected  with  the  same 
psychical  processes,  but  above  all  that  it  is  not 
a  description,  because  the  constitution  and  the 
elements  of  the  state  are  not  communicated  at 
all.  Is  there  no  case  in  which  the  logical  de- 
mands are  better  fulfilled  ? 


60  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

This  is  now  clearly  the  fact  as  regards  the 
ideas.  The  emotions  link  themselves  with  physi- 
cal causes  or  effects,  and  everything  in  respect  to 
them  is  dependent  upon  doubtful  observations 
and  interpretations  ;  the  ideas,  on  the  other  hand, 
stand  in  a  relation  to  physical  things  which  is 
anchored  in  philosophical  ground  and  independ- 
ent of  chance  observation  ;  the  ideas  mean 
things,  and  the  physical  things  and  the  ideas  by 
which  we  mean  them  are  in  reality  one  and  the 
same  object.  Here  we  have  a  logically  necessary 
connection  which  holds  firm  for  the  elements  as 
well  as  for  the  whole.  The  idea  means  the  thing, 
and  any  sensation  in  the  idea  means  a  feature  of 
the  thing.  The  tone,  the  smell,  the  color  as  sen- 
sation can  thus  be  communicated  indirectly  by 
reference  to  the  sounding,  smelling,  luminous 
physical  object,  and  any  degree  of  exactness 
can  be  reached  by  the  increasingly  accurate  de- 
scription of  the  physical  side.  The  ideas  have 
thus  a  perfectly  exceptional  situation.  No  other 
mental  state  can  find  such  logically  necessary 
connection  with  the  physical  world,  as  a  feeling 
or  volition  or  emotion  or  judgment  finds  merely 
empirical  connections,  and  moreover  connections 
only  in  which  the  whole  refers  to  a  whole  physi- 
cal thing,  but  not  every  element  to  a  special  fea- 
ture of  the  physical  object. 

Ideas  and  their  elements  alone  can  thus  find  a 
logically  satisfactory  description  in  psychology  ; 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  51 

the  description  is  indirect,  but  it  is  at  least  a 
communication  of  elements.  And  yet  it  is  easy 
to  understand  that  under  one  condition  this  ideal 
method  of  description  which  we  find  for  the  ideas 
may  be  found  at  our  disposal  for  all  the  other 
mental  states  as  well.  Psychology  would  then  be 
able  to  offer  a  complete  description  of  its  mate- 
rial. The  one  condition  is  this.  Let  us  call  the 
elements  into  which  we  can  analyze  our  ideas  by 
means  of  self-observation  by  the  name  sensations. 
It  may  then  be  that  all  the  non-ideational  mental 
states  also  are  made  up  of  sensations.  An  emo- 
tion or  volition  is  never  an  idea,  but  their  ele- 
ments may  be  the  same,  just  as  the  organic  and 
inorganic  substances  in  nature  are  composed  of 
the  same  chemical  elements.  If  an  emotion  or 
judgment  or  voHtion  were  a  complex  of  sensa- 
tions, that  is,  a  complex  of  possible  elements  of 
ideas,  then  of  course  we  could  describe  all  psy- 
chical facts  with  the  same  logical  completeness 
and  safety,  as  every  element  of  these  subjective 
states  would  be  exactly  determined  by  reference 
to  that  particle  of  the  physical  world  which  is 
meant  by  it  as  soon  as  it  becomes  part  of  an 
idea ;  that  is,  that  with  which  it  is  identical  from 
the  standpoint  of  undifferentiated  reality. 

Modern  psychology,  like  every  other  active 
and  productive  science,  has  had  no  leisure  to  stop 
and  inquire  for  the  logical  purposes  in  the  ser- 
vice of  which  its  work  is  done.     The  scientist 


62  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

follows  his  instincts,  and  these  instinctive  ener- 
gies carry  him,  perhaps,  more  safely  to  the  goal 
than  a  conscious  reflection  on  his  ends  and  means ; 
but  the  philosopher  must  recognize  these  under- 
lying purposes,  and  must  bring  all  specialistic 
work  within  this  general  point  of  view.  If  we 
take  such  attitude  toward  the  work  in  psychology 
of  the  last  twenty  years,  we  can  easily  see  that 
not  the  least  and  not  the  most  unimportant  part 
of  it  has  been  done  in  the  unconscious  service 
of  this  one  end  —  to  make  the  non-ideational 
states  of  mind  describable.  We  have  seen  that 
only  one  possibility  would  allow  that.  They  are 
describable  in  case  they  can  be  considered  as 
combinations  of  sensations ;  our  goal  is,  there- 
fore, to  replace  the  real  emotions,  judgments, 
volitions,  and  so  on,  by  complexes  of  sensations. 
Complicated  transformations  are  necessary  for 
this  purpose,  and  yet  the  psychologist  must  work 
in  the  belief  and  with  the  claim  that  these  sen- 
sations are  not  the  result  of  his  transformations, 
but  that  he  has  discovered  in  them  the  real  parts 
of  those  mental  states. 

AU  the  most  modern  theories  which  analyze 
the  emotions  into  complexes  of  bodily  sensations, 
and  the  will  into  ideational  elements,  and  seek 
sensational  substance  even  in  the  most  subtle 
shades  of  the  mind  and  in  the  most  fugitive  feel- 
ings, have  here  their  hidden  spring.  This  move- 
ment is  unlimited;  no  content  of  consciousness 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  53 

can  resist  its  impulse.  The  aim  of  the  psycholo- 
gist is  to  describe  the  mental  facts ;  he  must, 
therefore,  presuppose  that  all  mental  facts  are 
describable,  and,  since  only  elements  of  ideas  can 
be  described,  that  every  content  of  consciousness 
is  in  reality  a  combination  of  sensations.  As 
long  as  the  substitution  remains  incomplete  the 
psychologist  feels  that  he  has  not  discovered  the 
true  nature  of  the  facts.  The  belief  that  we  con- 
nect mental  with  physical  processes  merely  in 
the  service  of  explanation  is  thus  an  illusion ; 
the  simplest  description  demands  just  the  same. 

IV 

These  claims  of  description  do  not  mean  that 
the  demand  for  explanation  does  not  introduce 
any  new  features  into  the  system  of  relations 
between  the  physical  and  the  psychical  worlds. 
We  can  say  even  that  a  connection  of  a  quite 
different  character  must  be  acknowledged  as 
soon  as  we  try  to  understand  every  psychical 
phenomenon  from  its  foregoing  causes.  This 
new  and  in  many  ways  higher  form  of  psycho- 
physical connection  also  can  be  developed  here 
only  in  general  terms.  In  this  case  also  the 
principle  itself  may  be  more  or  less  masked  in 
the  soul  of  the  psychologist  who  uses  it,  and  here 
again  everything  depends  upon  logical  demands 
which  do  not  allow  an  exception,  and  not  upon 
empirical  observation. 


54  PSYCHOLOGY  AND   PHYSIOLOGY 

We  may  start  from  the  empirical  claim  that 
all  our  mental  life  goes  on  in  our  organism ;  this 
means  at  the  outset  only  that  my  ideas  and  feel- 
ings are  with  me  now  in  this  town,  in  this  room, 
in  this  body,  probably  in  this  head,  but  it  does 
not  include  any  hypothesis  as  to  the  relation  of 
mind  and  body.  My  mental  states  are  not  out- 
side of  my  epidermis,  but  they  may  go  on  some- 
where, for  instance  at  a  special  point  of  my  brain, 
absolutely  independent  of  the  functions  of  the 
organism.  Of  course  this  empirical  starting 
point  is  itself  reached  only  by  a  complicated 
remodeling  of  the  reality.  Primarily  the  inner 
experience  has  no  spatial  quality  at  all,  and  is 
thus  neither  in  a  room  nor  in  a  brain ;  space  is  a 
form  of  its  objects,  not  a  form  of  its  own  reality. 
But  this  introjection  of  the  mental  facts  into  the 
physical  organism  may  be  acknowledged  here  as 
granted  without  a  discussion  of  the  different 
steps  which  lead  to  it.  Even  when  this  point  is 
reached,  however,  many  possibilities  of  interpre- 
tation are  open ;  it  is  only  the  goal  that  lies 
clear  before  us :  we  must  explain  the  psychical 
facts. 

The  wish  to  explain  the  psychical  facts  is  not 
an  accidental  afterthought  resulting  from  an 
abundance  of  curiosity ;  rather  it  is  this  wish 
which  has  created  the  psychological  facts  as 
such.  In  reality  our  objects  are  objects  for  the 
will,  that  is,  values.     In  striving  towards  the  f ul- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  55 

fillment  of  the  duties  which  life  brings  to  us  we 
have  an  interest  in  determining  what  we  have  to 
expect  from  the  objects  in  so  far  as  they  are  in- 
dependent of  our  will.  We  thus  separate  the 
object  from  the  real  active  subject  for  the  one 
purpose  of  determining  our  justified  expectations 
in  regard  to  the  changes  of  the  objects.  In  do- 
ing so  we  create  in  thought  independent  objects, 
which  we  call  physical  in  so  far  as  they  are  ob- 
jects for  every  subject,  and  psychical  in  so  far 
as  they  are  objects  for  one  subject  only.  The 
world  is  thus  re-thought  as  physical  and  psychi- 
cal phenomena  only  under  the  pressure  of  the 
intention  to  find  out  the  influence  which  the  ob- 
ject will  have  on  the  future,  that  is,  the  effects 
which  it  will  produce.  In  other  words,  we  ac- 
knowledge psychical  objects  as  such  merely  as 
factors  in  a  system  of  causes  and  effects,  that  is, 
as  factors  in  an  explainable  system.  We  cannot 
ask  whether  the  psychical  and  physical  facts  are 
explainable  or  not;  the  possibility  of  their  expla- 
nation is  their  only  legitimate  claim  to  existence. 
If  we  wish  to  take  another  attitude  toward  the 
experience,  —  the  attitude  of  appreciation  and 
inner  understanding,  for  instance,  —  then  we 
deal  with  the  inner  life  as  it  is  given  in  reality, 
and  nothing  suggests  that  transformation  which 
creates  psychical  and  physical  objects. 

How  is  the  explanation  of   psychical   pheno- 
mena  possible?      We  consider   a   phenomenon 


S6  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

explained  as  soon  as  we  can  show  that  it  is 
necessarily  connected  with  another  existing  fact 
which  precedes.  At  the  first  glance  this  de- 
mand seems  to  be  satisfied  whenever  we  can 
bring  two  facts  under  an  empirical  law  which 
says  whenever  A  occurs  B  must  follow.  The 
necessity  of  the  connection  between  the  single 
facts  appears  then  as  a  logical  consequence  of 
the  general  fact  which  the  law  reports  ;  it  must 
be  so  and  not  otherwise  this  time  because  it  is  al- 
ways so.  Psychology  and  physics  therefore  seek 
empirical  laws.  The  attraction  of  the  iron  is 
explained  by  the  laws  of  electricity,  and  the  re- 
production of  the  idea  is  explained  by  the  laws 
of  association.  The  two  sciences  seem  in  this 
respect  perfectly  parallel,  and  yet  they  mean 
something  theoretically  absolutely  different.  All 
the  laws  of  the  physical  universe  are  in  the  last 
analysis  applications  of  the  laws  of  mechanics. 
The  question  is  not  whether  every  empirical  law 
is  already  recognized  in  its  mechanical  factors, 
but  it  must  be  acknowledgfed  that  natural  science 
has  not  reached  its  ideal  end  till  the  physical 
world  is  understood  as  a  world  of  atoms  which 
move  according  to  mechanical  laws.  All  physi- 
cal, chemical,  and  biological  laws  are  then  merely 
applications  and  combinations  of  the  mechanical 
laws  for  special  complexes  of  atoms. 

None  of  the  empirical  laws  are  as  such  neces- 
sary connections  for  our  intellect ;  they  are  con- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  67 

densed  experiences,  and  if  the  experiences  were 
otherwise  the  laws  would  be  changed.  The  me- 
chanical axioms,  on  the  other  hand,  are  of  a  very 
different  character ;  they  are  the  necessary  forms 
of  our  apperception  of  the  outer  world,  —  the 
forms  of  connection  which  make  the  thinking  of 
a  connected  world  of  objects  possible  at  all,  — 
and  the  aim  to  transform  all  empirical  laws  ulti- 
mately into  mechanical  ones  is  thus  the  unavoid- 
able consequence  of  the  logical  nature  of  the 
latter.  The  mechanical  laws  are  therefore  the 
real  basis  of  all  necessity  in  the  physical  connec- 
tions. The  physical  or  chemical  or  biological 
laws  would  in  themselves  not  contain  anything 
which  could  convince  us  that  an  event  must 
happen  just  so  and  not  otherwise,  but  as  soon 
as  we  understand  them  to  be  comphcations  of 
mechanical  laws  they  are  logically  indispen- 
sable. All  our  trust  in  the  necessity  of  the 
physical  laws  is  thus  based  finally  on  the  con- 
viction, that  if  we  knew  all  we  should  recognize 
every  law  as  a  consequence  of  the  mechanical 
axioms  which  are  laws  of  thought  applied  to 
the  conception  of  space  and  time. 

All  the  axiomatic  doctrines  about  causal  con- 
nections in  the  universe  depend  upon  one  law, 
which  is  the  fundamental  presupposition  for  the 
existence  of  the  physical  world,  the  law  that 
the  causes  and  effects  are  quantitatively  equal. 
The  totality  of  physical  processes  can  then  be 


58  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

expressed  in  causal  equations,  and  every  effect 
can  theoretically  be  determined  and  exactly  cal- 
culated from  the  causes.  As  all  physical  laws 
can  thus  be  reduced  to  mechanical  axioms,  which 
are  ultimately  dependent  upon  this  postulate  of 
causal  equations,  the  necessity  of  the  physical 
universe  finds  here  its  real  foundation ;  this  ulti- 
mate axiom  links  all  physical  processes  in  the 
world  by  the  chain  of  necessity,  and  thus  ad- 
mits, theoretically,  an  absolutely  perfect  expla- 
nation. 

Nothing  of  this  kind  is  possible,  on  the  other 
hand,  for  the  empirical  laws  of  the  psychical 
world.  The  laws  of  association  and  all  the 
other  empirical  laws,  in  which  modern  psycho- 
logy condenses  the  results  of  observation,  can 
never  be  transformed  into  causal  equations,  and 
therefore  never  based  on  a  foundation  of  neces- 
sity. They  can  never  make  us  understand  that 
■With  a  special  preceding  cause  absolutely  this 
special  effect  must  result.  Why  is  it  so  ? 
Why  is  all  that  gives  its  ultimate  meaning  and 
strength  to  physical  law  definitively  denied  to 
the  psychical  laws  ?  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
chance ;  no,  it  is  the  result  of  the  fundamental 
act  by  which  the  subject  divides  the  real  object 
into  a  physical  and  a  psychical  thing,  meaning 
by  physical  all  that  is  a  possible  object  for  every 
luibject,  by  psychical  all  that  is  a  possible  object 
for  one  subject  only.     This  definition  makes  it 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  59 

logically  necessary  that  the  physical  object  shall 
not  disappear  and  shall  not  be  newly  created, 
but  must  be  equal  in  all  changes,  while  the  psy- 
chical object,  which  cannot  be  the  object  of  two 
subjective  acts,  must  therefore  be  created  and 
disappear  in  every  new  act.  One  psychical  ob- 
ject can  then  not  contain  another,  and  can  hence 
not  be  considered  as  its  multiple.  It  cannot  be 
understood,  therefore,  as  a  measurable  quantity, 
and  is  thus  eternally  unlit  for  a  causal  equation, 
and  therefore  for  a  connection  by  necessity. 

The  claim  that  psychological  facts  as  such  can 
never  be  directly  connected  by  necessity  may  be 
misunderstood  as  meaning  that  the  acts  which 
form  our  inner  life  have  no  inner  connection. 
The  opposite  is  true.  Our  inner  Ufe  in  its  real 
activity  is  bound  together  in  all  its  acts,  but  it  is 
an  inner  connection,  not  an  outer  one,  as  it  refers 
to  the  will,  while  objects  can  have  no  other  con- 
nection than  a  causal  one.  The  real  acts  of  our 
life  bind  each  other  teleologically  by  their  inten- 
tions and  meanings,  but  as  soon  as  we  transform 
the  acts  into  psychical  objects  this  inner  connec- 
vion  loses  all  its  meaning.  Our  acknowledgment 
of  premises  binds  us  in  acknowledging  the  con- 
clusions, but  this  connection  of  judgments  is 
only  logically,  that  is,  teleologically,  necessary  ; 
psychologically  the  judgments  as  psychical  con- 
tents can  connect  themselves  with  a  wrong  con- 
clusion  just   as   well  as  with    the   logical  one. 


60  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

The  connection  of  our  real  inner  life  is  not  a 
causal  one,  while  psychological  facts  as  such,  that 
is,  as  objects,  find  causal  connection  or  are  not 
connected  at  all.  We  have  seen  that  they  can- 
not necessarily  be  connected  in  a  direct  way, 
because  they  cannot  enter  into  a  causal  equation. 
To  concede  that  they  ought  then  not  to  be  ex- 
plained at  all  is  still  less  possible,  as  we  have 
seen  that  we  conceive  mental  life  as  a  series  of 
psychical  objects  merely  for  the  purpose  of  link- 
ing it  causally.  It  follows  that  we  must  then 
take  the  way  which  we  were  forced  to  choose  in 
the  interest  of  description ;  that  is,  we  must  try 
to  do  indirectly  what  is  impossible  by  direct 
methods,  we  must  connect  the  unexplainable 
psychical  world  with  the  explainable  physical 
world.  If  the  idea  of  the  physical  world  in- 
cludes the  postulate  that  every  physical  process 
can  be  understood  as  the  necessary  result  of  the 
foregoing  process,  and  if  we  are  able  to  show 
for  every  psychical  process  that  it  is  connected 
with  a  physical  one,  we  can  consider  the  psychi- 
cal facts  themselves  as  causally  connected  when- 
ever the  corresponding  physical  processes  are 
causally  linked. 

V 

The  purpose  of  this  connection  would  be 
fulfilled  by  any  material  that  shows  a  logically 
constant   relation.      In   the   discussion   of   the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  61 

principles  of  description  we  have  seen  that  only 
one  connection  between  psychical  and  physical 
facts  —  that  between  perception  and  perceived 
object  —  has  logical  necessity,  because  this  con- 
nection can  be  deduced  from  primary  identity. 
It  is  evident  that  this  relation  cannot  be  used,  at 
least  in  this  direct  form,  for  the  purposes  of  ex- 
planation. By  description  we  aim  at  making  the 
described  mental  state  a  kind  of  public  property ; 
every  one  who  understands  the  description  finds 
the  idea  which  suits  the  description  in  his  own 
mind;  and  we  must  therefore  Unk  it  with  a  part 
of  the  physical  world,  which  is  practically  at  the 
disposal  of  every  one.  The  explanation,  on  the 
other  hand,  does  not  seek  to  formulate  a  propo- 
sition about  the  mental  states  of  other  subjects ; 
it  strives  to  set  forth  the  one  mental  fact  which 
actually  appears  in  me  or  in  you.  It  must  thus 
refer  to  a  part  of  the  physical  world  which  be- 
longs to  the  individual,  that  is,  to  our  body. 
Our  body  is,  of  course,  also  like  every  physical 
thing,  an  object  of  perception  for  all,  and  just 
for  that  reason  it  is  possible  to  take  the  processes 
in  the  body  on  which  the  explanation  is  based  as 
material  for  description  and  communication ;  but 
in  a  more  essential  sense  my  body  is  an  indi- 
vidual object,  as  it  is  the  one  object  whose  local 
and  temporal  relations  to  other  objects  determine 
my  individual  view  of  the  world.  If  we  describe 
an  idea  the  reference  to  such  a  practically  indi- 


62  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

vidual  object  would  be  unsatisfactory,  as  it  must 
be  linked  with  the  corresponding  idea  in  every 
one  to  be  a  real  description.  If  we  explain  an 
idea  the  reference  to  a  practically  common  object 
would  be  useless,  as  we  are  seeking  to  explain 
a  strictly  individual  fact,  the  psychical  object 
which  I  have  in  this  special  moment.  In  the 
description  of  the  idea  of  the  moon  I  refer  to 
the  moon  itself,  claiming  that  wherever  the 
physical  moon  exists  there  is  given  the  material 
from  which  can  be  learned  what  idea  I  mean. 
But  if  I  wish  to  explain  why  I  now  have  the 
perception  of  the  moon  it  would  not  do  to  refer 
again  merely  to  the  existence  of  the  moon,  since 
the  fact  that  the  moon  exists  certainly  does  not 
logically  imply  that  every  one  at  present  has  the 
perception  of  the  moon  in  consciousness.  It  is 
logically  necessary  that  whenever,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  explanation,  psychical  facts  are  linked 
with  physical  ones  the  physical  processes  must 
be  processes  in  the  individual  bodies.  We  can 
even  add  that  it  must  be  a  process  in  the  body 
which  cannot  be  an  object  for  our  neighbors  in 
the  same  way  as  for  ourselves.  A  process  of  my 
peripheral  organs  would  thus  be  as  unsatisfac- 
tory a  means  of  explanation  as  the  existence  of 
the  moon.  The  fact  that  something  happens  to 
my  hand,  for  instance,  cannot  serve  as  explana- 
tion for  the  appearance  of  a  special  mental  state, 
for  then  my  neighbor,  who  can  perceive  my  hand 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  63 

as  I  do,  would  necessarily  have  the  same  feeling 
if  that  hand  process  and  the  feeling  were  two 
objects  which  really  belonged  together.  A  cen- 
tral part  of  the  body,  which  cannot  be  the  object 
of  sense  perception  while  it  is  part  of  my  body, 
is  alone  in  question.  This  is  the  reason  that 
all  the  peripheral  parts  of  the  body  can  be  and 
always  are  material  for  our  descriptions,  for  in- 
stance in  the  reference  to  muscles,  joints,  glands, 
and  so  on,  while  the  brain,  which  is  not  an 
object  of  perception,  can  never  be  used  for  the 
description.  Exactly  the  opposite  is  necessarily 
true  of  the  explanation. 

We  thus  need  for  explanation  a  process  in  the 
physical  individual  body  which  is  not  a  possible 
object  of  perception  while  we  have  the  psychical 
experience,  and  for  which  can  be  found  a  uni- 
vocal  and  necessary  connection  with  the  psychi- 
cal object.  This  condition  is  realized  for  the 
perceptive  idea  and  that  brain  process  which 
stands  in  causally  necessary  dependence  upon 
the  perceived  object.  The  relation  between  the 
perceptive  idea,  on  the  one  side,  and  the  brain 
process  which  is  produced  by  the  perceived  ob- 
ject on  the  other  side,  fulfills  those  necessary 
conditions  in  ideal  completeness,  inasmuch  as  the 
connection  between  the  idea  and  its  object  is 
based  on  epistemological  identity  and  the  rela- 
tion between  the  object  and  its  effect  on  the 
individual  brain  is  necessary  from  physical  caus' 


64  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

ality.  The  brain  stimulation  -which  is  caused 
by  the  moon  is  then  not  conceived  as  a  cause 
for  the  perception  of  the  moon  any  more  than 
the  perceived  object  itself  was  conceived  as  the 
cause.  The  moon  is  the  cause  of  the  brain 
action,  but  not  of  the  idea.  The  material  moon 
belongs  to  the  perception  of  it  primarily,  not  as 
a  cause,  but  as  the  counterpart  which  is  in  epis- 
temological  reality  identical  with  the  perceptive 
idea ;  and  it  is  merely  this  logical  relation  that 
is  kept  up  when  the  physiological  effect  of  the 
moon  in  our  brain  is  substituted  for  the  moon 
itself.  This  brain  excitement,  also,  is  then  in 
no  way  the  cause  of  the  idea  and  the  idea  in 
no  way  the  effect  of  the  brain  action ;  even  the 
usual  metaphors  which  say  that  it  is  the  inside 
of  the  brain  process,  or  that  it  is  parallel  to  the 
brain  process,  or  that  they  belong  together  as 
do  a  concave  and  a  convex  surface,  are  merely 
practically  useful  expressions  for  a  relation  of  a 
strictly  logical  character  which  is  derived  from 
epistemological  identity.  The  psychophysical 
parallelism  of  brain  function  and  idea  does  not, 
therefore,  seek  at  all  to  explain  the  idea  by  the 
physiological  process,  or  vice  versa,  but  merely 
to  state  that  they  necessarily  belong  together, 
and  thus  to  admit  the  further  consequence  that 
whenever  the  physical  process  is  causally  pro- 
duced the  parallel  psychical  idea  must  be 
conceived  as  existing.     Causality  thus  connects 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  65 

only  the  physical  objects  directly,  while  the  psy- 
chical ideas  are  indirectly  linked  as  accompani- 
ments of  the  physiological  processes.  We  have 
seen  that  such  a  physical  causal  connection  is 
in  principle  a  connection  of  absolute  necessity, 
not  comparable  with  the  combination  suggested 
by  an  observed  regularity.  So  far,  then,  as 
the  ideas  can  be  understood  as  counterparts  of 
physiological  processes  which  are  causally  con- 
nected, this  convincing  necessity  binds  them, 
while  as  merely  psychical  facts  they  were  dis- 
connected members. 

If  it  were  our  goal  to  extend  this  method  of 
indirect  causal  binding  to  the  whole  content  of 
consciousness,  three  conditions  would  have  to  be 
fulfilled.  First,  the  psychophysical  parallelism 
which  expresses  the  relation  of  the  brain  process 
to  the  idea  would  have  to  be  acknowledged  for 
the  parts  of  the  idea  also ;  every  element  of  the 
idea  would  have  to  correspond  to  a  special  part 
of  the  physiological  process  which  the  idea  as  a 
whole  accompanies.  Secondly,  every  content  of 
consciousness  must  be  capable  of  analysis  into 
possible  elements  of  ideas,  that  is,  into  sensa- 
tions; and  thirdly,  the  physiological  processes, 
which  are  conceived  as  accompaniments  of  all 
contents  of  consciousness,  must  be  capable  of 
being  linked  by  physical  causality,  either  among 
themselves  or  with  the  events  of  the  universe 
outside  of  the  brain.     Of  these  three  conditions 


66  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

we  have  seen  the  second  one  to  be  fulfilled  in  so 
far  as  we  acknowledge  the  mental  life  to  be  de- 
scribable.  The  transformation  of  the  inner  life 
into  sensations  was  the  only  way  to  describe  it, 
and  as  the  possibility  of  description  is  granted  as 
a  presupposition  of  psychology,  therefore  we  have 
a  right  to  presuppose  that  all  mental  states  are 
complexes  of  sensations,  however  far  we  may  be 
at  present  from  a  full  knowledge  of  all  the  ele- 
ments which  compose  it.  The  fulfillment  of  the 
first  and  third  conditions  can,  of  course,  be  given 
merely  by  the  work  of  the  physiologist ;  the 
psychologist  can  hardly  add  anything.  The 
physiologist,  on  the  other  hand,  cannot  find  any 
insurmountable  difficulty  in  striving  towards  a 
demonstration  of  their  possibility.  The  over- 
whelming manifoldness  of  the  histological  ele- 
ments of  the  central  nervous  system  and  the 
complication  of  its  structure,  the  difficulty  of 
observing  its  functions  in  a  direct  way,  and 
many  other  pecuhar  factors  open  an  almost  un- 
limited field  to  the  interpretation  of  the  physio- 
logist ;  there  is  no  reason  why  he  could  not  select 
as  truth  merely  those  facts  which  point  towards 
the  fulfillment  of  the  two  mentioned  conditions, 
and  why  he  could  not  supplement  these  facts  by 
constructions  which  make  up  a  system  in  which 
these  logical  presuppositions  for  the  explicability 
of  the  psychical  facts  are  fulfilled.  Exactly  this 
and  nothing  else  the  modern  brain  physiologist 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  67 

is  attempting,  and,  like  all  other  scientists,  he 
must  presuppose  that  the  goal  at  which  he  is 
aiming  can  be  reached.  He  thus  takes  for 
granted  that  every  sensation  is  accompanied  by 
a  special  brain  process,  and  that  all  brain  pro- 
cesses can  be  explained  through  physical  cau- 
sality. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  totality  of  our 
mental  life  can  be  conceived  as  linked  indirectly 
by  real  necessity,  but  it  is  not  less  clear  that  under 
these  circumstances  our  interest  as  psychologists 
is  directed  merely  to  the  general  theory  of  psycho- 
physical parallelism  and  not  to  the  special  facts 
of  the  psychophysical  connections.  We  must 
acknowledge  that  every  mental  fact  is  the  accom- 
paniment of  a  special  brain  process,  and  this  abso- 
lutely without  any  possible  exception,  because 
under  this  condition  alone  is  it  possible  to  con- 
ceive the  psychical  objects  as  causally  connected, 
and  it  was  for  the  purpose  of  causal  interpreta- 
tion only  that  the  transformation  of  the  inner 
experience  into  psychical  objects  was  made.  But 
we  cannot  have  as  psychologists  any  interest  in 
the  question  of  the  special  brain  process  which 
accompanies  a  special  given  psychical  phenome- 
non ;  that  is  physiology,  and  psychology  has 
nothing  to  learn  from  it.  We  take  for  granted 
that  such  a  connection  exists,  indeed  our  whole 
explanatory  psychology  would  collapse  if  we 
allowed  the  slightest  exception ;  but  we  do  not 


68  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

learn  anything  about  the  psychical  facts  them- 
selves when  we  hear  that  the  process  takes  place 
in  the  cortex  or  in  the  subcortical  centres,  in  the 
ganglion  cell  or  in  the  dendrite,  or  in  the  front 
part  or  in  the  side  part  of  the  brain.  Moreover, 
it  is  now  clear  why  the  conviction  of  the  psy- 
chologist, that  every  mental  state  has  its  physio- 
logical accompaniment,  is  fully  independent  of 
the  special  discoveries  of  physiology  and  patho- 
logy ;  it  is  not  the  result  of  observations,  but  of 
postulates  which  are  logically  unavoidable  if  we 
are  to  have  psychology  at  all. 

VI 

There  remains,  of  course,  the  possibility  of  the 
objection  that  the  empirical  facts  do  not  allow  a 
construction  which  satisfies  such  psychophysical 
postulates,  and  that  therefore  the  hypothetically 
demanded  psychology  is  an  end  which  can  never 
be  reached,  and  thus  an  impossible  science.  If 
such  view  is  correct,  if  a  consistent  descriptive 
and  causally  explaining  psychology  cannot  be 
realized,  it  is  evident  whither  the  inheritance 
must  go.  If  the  mental  life  cannot  be  explained 
causally,  —  and  that  means  psychophysically,  — 
then  the  whole  inner  experience  must  be  given 
over  to  the  subjectifying  sciences,  which  inter- 
pret it  by  its  meaning  and  by  its  values,  taking 
the  inner  life  as  a  unity  and  as  a  will  act,  which 
it  certainly  is  in  reality.     The  objections  to  ex- 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   PHYSIOLOGY  69 

plaining  psychology  from  this  side  are  essen- 
tially two.  On  the  one  side,  it  is  said  that 
the  physiological  system,  which  alone  carries  the 
responsibility  for  all  psychological  connections, 
can  never  explain  the  intellectual  and  teleological 
character  of  our  connections  in  consciousness. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  is  emphasized  that  the  struc- 
ture and  the  connections  of  the  brain  are  totally 
inadequate  to  satisfy  the  other  demand  that  a 
special  brain  process  shall  correspond  to  every 
possible  variation  of  the  psychical  experience. 
These  two  objections  must  now  engage  our  at- 
tention. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  first  claim  seems  an- 
tagonistic to  all  the  instinctive  feelings  of  a 
popular  philosophy.  The  psychophysical  paral- 
lelism which  we  have  deduced  as  a  necessary 
logical  postulate  if  psychology  is  to  exist  at  all, 
demands  indeed  not  less  than  the  determination 
of  all  our  psychophysical  functions  by  the  dispo- 
sitions and  causal  connections  of  processes  in 
physical  matter.  Whatever  we  think,  feel,  will, 
and  act  can,  as  psychophysical  process,  be  exactly 
determined  by  the  totality  of  active  and  latent 
causes  in  the  physical  system.  This  seems  to  de- 
prive our  inner  life  of  all  its  values,  and,  as  we 
are  accustomed  to  connect  every  appreciation  in 
life  with  inner  experience,  it  seems  deplorable 
to  conceive  this  inner  life  as  dependent  upon  the 
blind  movements  of  feelingless  matter.     But  we 


fO  PSYCHOLOGY  AND   PHYSIOLOGY 

have  emphasized  from  the  beginning  that  here 
every  emotional  interference  means  confusion. 
Values  and  duties,  freedom  and  responsibility, 
belong  to  the  inner  life  in  its  real  activity,  but 
not  to  the  system  of  psychological  facts  into 
which  we  have  transformed  the  inner  experience. 
As  soon  as  the  remoulding  of  the  reality  into 
physical  and  psychical  objects  is  completed  the 
latter  do  not  stand  nearer  to  the  attitudes  of  the 
real  personality  than  do  the  former.  Whether 
a  result  is  produced  by  the  causal  mechanism  of  a 
physical  substance,  or  by  the  causal  actions  of 
a  mental  stuff,  is  not  different  from  the  point 
of  view  of  dignity  ;  both  schemes  are  equally  far 
from  the  teleological  actions  of  the  real  subject. 
The  question  is  thus  merely  whether  the  state  of 
science  makes  it  appear  possible  to  explain  the 
totality  of  psychophysical  functions,  even  the 
wisest  word  and  the  best  deed,  as  the  necessary 
product  of  physiological  processes. 

The  problem  is  a  biological  one,  and  the  biolo- 
gist need  not  wait  for  the  philosopher  with  his 
epistemological  postulates  deduced  from  the  ne- 
cessary limitations  of  psychology.  The  biologist 
finds  a  direct  impulse  to  such  considerations  in- 
dependent of  all  psychological  questions  in  the 
fundamental  principle  of  physics,  the  law  of  the 
conservation  of  energy.  He  is,  of  course,  mis- 
taken in  believing  that  it  is  based  less  on  philo- 
sophical reasons  than  on  empirical  observation. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  71 

but  it  is  in  any  case  a  non-psychological  principle 
which  leads  to  the  same  result  as  the  psychologi- 
cal discussions:  every  action,  every  expression, 
every  function  which  seems  to  refer  to  psychical 
experience  must  find  the  totality  of  its  causes  on 
the  physical  side,  since  every  exception  would  be 
a  physical  miracle.  The  slightest  physical  action 
which  is  not  completely  determined  by  the  fore- 
going physical  causes  would  represent  an  increase 
of  the  sum  of  energy,  a  concession  by  which  the 
whole  system  of  physical  science  would  be  hope- 
lessly undermined,  and  which  must  be  uncom- 
promisingly denied,  even  at  the  present  stage  of 
science,  which  is  certainly  still  far  from  demon- 
strating the  constancy  of  the  sum  of  energies  in 
all  variations.  Thus  the  difference  between  the 
two  possible  ways  of  the  biologist  is  merely  this : 
When  he  starts  from  the  physical  laws  he  seeks 
to  explain  human  actions,  and  this  demand  for 
physical  explanation  of  the  motor  discharges 
leads  him  to  the  conviction  that  the  psychical 
states  also  are,  from  his  standpoint,  merely  accom- 
paniments of  physiological  processes.  When  he 
starts  from  the  psychical  facts  and  their  unfitness 
for  causal  interdependence,  he  aims  directly  at 
finding  a  physiological  accompaniment  to  every 
psychical  fact,  and  thence  comes  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  motor  discharges  can  be  explained 
through  these  accompanying  brain  excitements ; 
the  final  outcome,  however,  is  in  both  cases  the 
same. 


T2  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

Does  the  biologist  ever  feel  discouraged  in 
such  studies  by  the  valuable  character  of  the 
processes,  by  that  factor  which  seems  to  naive 
eclecticism  not  only  the  moral  hindrance,  but 
also  the  chief  theoretical  difiiculty?  Does  it 
retard  his  explanations  when  the  result  of  the 
brain  functions  shows  logical  and  practical 
adjustment  to  the  outer  conditions  and  to  the 
interests  of  the  acting  organism,  just  as  if  a 
deliberating  intelligence  had  opened  and  closed 
the  right  switches  and  tracks  in  the  cerebral 
system?  Decidedly  not;  more  than  that,  we 
may  say  that  this  wisdom  and  usefulness  is  for 
him  the  key  to  the  whole  situation. 

The  biologist  naturally  compares  the  postu- 
lated functions  of  the  brain  with  the  actions  of 
the  other  organs  in  the  organism  and  finds  every- 
where the  same  adaptation  and  the  same  select- 
iveness  without  ever  taking  refuge  in  the  too  easy 
hypothesis  that  an  intellectual  subject  stands 
behind  the  stage  and  pulls  the  wires.  Such  a 
soul  hypothesis  is  no  doubt  convenient,  but  it 
leaves  all  the  problems  unsolved,  and  would  be 
in  itself  a  still  more  complicated  system  to  ex- 
plain. After  a  hearty  meal  millions  and  millions 
of  cells  are  working  in  our  vegetative  system 
which  cooperate  in  the  interest  of  the  nutrition 
of  the  organism  with  a  wisdom  no  council  of 
chemists  could  surpass ;  yet  the  physiologist 
would  think  it  a  cheap  hypothesis  to  suppose 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  73 

that  a  stomach-soul  controls  these  useful  and 
adapted  actions.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the 
apparatus  of  blood  circulation,  of  breathing,  of 
procreation,  and  so  on.  But  everywhere  the 
biolosrist  takes  this  usefulness  not  as  increasino- 
the  difficulty  of  his  explanations,  but  as  the  bridge 
towards  a  causal  understanding ;  the  modern 
biologist  would  feel  himself  lost  only  on  finding 
a  useless  or  disadvantageous  organ  which  could 
not  be  understood  as  an  abnormal  individual  dis- 
turbance, or  as  the  remainder  of  a  formerly  useful 
orgfan.  The  useful  org^an  alone  can  have  found 
the  conditions  for  its  development  in  the  growth 
of  the  race.  The  digestive  apparatus  of  man 
with  its  fairy-tale-like  complication  can  be  fol- 
lowed in  this  phylogenetic  development  from 
the  highest  mammals  down  to  the  protozoons, 
where  the  assimilation  of  nourishing  substance 
is  the  function  of  the  whole  protoplasmic  sub- 
stance. With  the  growing  differentiation  of  the 
organism  only  those  variations  of  the  vegetative 
apparatus  were  not  eliminated  which  served  the 
purposes  of  the  organism  and  its  descendants  ,: 
every  useless  formation  was  destroyed  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  and  thus  lost  its  chance 
of  being  inherited.  It  is  thus  just  the  useful 
complications  which  become  explicable  on  me- 
chanical principles  to  the  biologist  of  the  Dar- 
winian age. 


T4  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

VII 

Why  not  apply  this  same  view  to  the  functions 
of  the  brain?  One  thing  is  of  course  evident 
from  the  first :  the  biologist  must  consider  not 
merely  a  part  of  the  apparatus,  but  the  whole,  as 
only  the  whole  can  be  useful.  No  biology  can 
explain  the  development  of  the  heart  without 
the  peripheral  blood  vessels,  or  the  liver  without 
the  stomach ;  the  brain  alone  is  not  the  whole, 
it  is  the  central  part,  as  is  the  heart  in  the 
blood  system.  The  brain  is  useful  merely  as 
the  central  organ  of  a  system  which  begins 
with  the  sense  organs,  connects  them  by  a  hun- 
dred thousand  sensory  nerves  with  the  central 
nervous  system,  and  connects  this  central  part,  by 
means  of  the  motor  nerves,  with  the  muscles  of 
the  organism.  The  psychophysical  functions 
without  muscles  to  express  them,  or  the  centrally 
controlled  motor  system  without  sense-organs  to 
adjust  the  functions  to  the  outer  world,  would  be 
biologically  useless.  This  whole  arc,  from  the 
sense  organs  through  the  brain  to  the  muscles,  is 
on  the  other  hand  an  apparatus  not  more  and 
not  less  useful  than  the  circulatory  or  respiratory 
apparatus ;  they  all  represent  a  perfect  adapta- 
tion of  the  organism  to  the  outer  world. 

If  this  arc  is  looked  on  as  one  apparatus,  we 
have  indeed  no  difficulty  in  following  the  phylo- 
genetic   development   downward   to   the  lowest 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   PHYSIOLOGY  75 

forms  in  which  the  functions  of  this  arc  were 
secured  by  the  protoplasmatic  activity  of  the 
whole  organism.  Among  the  protozoons  we  find 
two  types  of  reaction  to  outer  stimuli :  the  con- 
traction of  the  whole  body  under  disadvantageous 
stiraidation  and  the  pseudopodic  extension  under 
favorable  stimulation.  Both  reactions  are  most 
useful  characteristics,  since  contraction  brings 
the  smallest  possible  surface  in  contact  with  the 
dangerous  substance,  while  extension  offers  the 
largest  possible  surface  to  the  beneficial  sur- 
roundings. It  states  the  problem  wrongly  to 
ask  how  the  lowest  animals  came  to  this  acquisi- 
tion :  it  is  just  by  virtue  of  this  variation  that 
the  protoplasmic  substance  becomes  an  animal. 
As  soon  as  organisms  with  the  power  of  such 
reaction  exist,  the  differentiation  of  the  under- 
lying substratum  of  this  function  is  a  necessary 
accompaniment  to  the  increasing  complication 
and  growth  of  the  animals.  Firstly,  the  animal 
cannot  reach  its  prey  and  cannot  protect  itself 
against  its  dangers  if  at  the  higher  stages  of 
development  the  whole  body  still  goes  through 
the  reactions.  The  stimulation  and  the  motor 
response  must  become  more  and  more  localized 
and  the  transformation  of  excitement  into  dis- 
charge must  thus  find  isolated  paths ;  we  call 
them  nerves.  But  the  protective  function  of 
this  apparatus  still  remains  too  limited  for  a 
higher  stage  if  the  reaction  answers  merely  the 


76  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

outer  stimuli  of  the  moment.  It  needs  thus 
secondly  the  development  of  an  organ  by  which 
the  reaction  can  become  the  discharge  of  all  the 
foregoing  stimuli  together,  an  organ  in  which 
the  after  effects  of  earlier  impressions  remain  as 
molecular  dispositions  which  have  a  reenforcing 
or  varying  or  inhibitory  influence  on  the  dis- 
charges of  the  new  impressions.  Such  an  organ 
must  develop  its  possibilities  steadily  in  the  phy- 
logenetic  development  as  it  adjusts  the  move- 
ments of  the  organism  to  a  circle  of  conditions 
which  is  the  wider  the  more  this  apparatus  is 
differentiated ;  we  call  it  the  central  nervous 
system.  Its  biological  functions  are  those  which 
we  refer  in  psychological  interpretation  to  mem- 
ory, attention,  volition,  and  so  forth.  In  prin- 
ciple it  is  nothing  new ;  the  bug,  the  frog, 
the  dog,  adjust  their  useful  and  protective  reac- 
tions merely  to  an  increasingly  large  set  of 
stimuli,  spread  over  space  and  time,  while  the 
central  nervous  system  of  even  the  mammal  does 
not  produce  any  movement  which  better  adjusts 
the  organism  of  its  owner  to  its  surrounding 
than  does  the  protoplastic  substance  of  the  in- 
fusoria. 

Nothing  new  is  brought  by  the  step  forwards 
from  animal  to  man  ;  it  is  the  steady  development 
of  a  biological  mechanism  which  does  not  change 
its  functions  in  spite  of  new  and  characteristic 
complications.     The  life  of  man  brings  two  fac- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  77 

tors  into  the  evolution  which  were  not  unknown 
but  insignificant  in  lower  stages  of  the  living 
world :  the  tool  and  the  division  of  labor.  Su- 
perficial biologists  sometimes  believe  themselves 
to  be  true  Darwinians  only  when  they  predict 
for  man  a  development  towards  an  over-man 
with  a  still  more  developed  body,  and  they  even 
go  so  far  as  to  construct  an  ethics  which  shall 
serve  such  biological  progress.  That  the  biolo- 
gical development  cannot  suddenly  stop  is  of 
course  true.  A  higher  organism  is  indeed  to 
succeed  the  lower  one  in  the  human  race  too, 
but  the  development  has  reached  with  man  a 
form  in  which  progress  does  not  mean  simply  dif- 
ferentiation of  the  body.  The  tools  of  technique 
and  the  means  of  communication  through  which 
division  of  labor  is  possible,  in  short,  the  products 
of  civilization,  are  the  new  organs  of  man,  and 
their  development  in  the  struggle  for  existence 
continues  in  a  direct  biological  line  the  progress 
of  the  animals.  The  only  biologically  possible 
over-man  is  the  man  with  higher  civilization,  and 
it  would  correspond  to  zoological  laws  that  he  is 
not  more  highly  developed  in  his  bodily  appara- 
tus ;  the  latter  may  even  be  reduced,  since  the 
man  does  not  need  strong  legs  if  he  has  locomo- 
tives, nor  strong  fists  if  he  has  cannons,  nor 
strong  eyes  if  he  has  microscopes,  nor  a  strong 
memory  if  he  has  libraries. 

The  tool  in  its  widest  sense  was  indeed  the 


78  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

greatest  step  forwards,  as  it  means  an  extension 
of  the  physiological  arc  at  both  its  ends,  char- 
acterized by  the  entirely  new  attribute  that  it 
is  detachable  and  thus  not  destroyed  in  the 
death  of  the  organism  by  which  it  is  produced. 
The  individual  can  attach  to  his  arc  apparatus 
the  products  of  all  preceding  generations,  and 
thus  readjust  his  purposes  with  an  incomparable 
richness  of  means.  And  in  the  same  direction 
works  the  division  of  labor,  the  other  great 
biological  scheme  which  nature  has  tried  with 
man.  The  functions  of  the  individual  sense- 
organ-brain-muscle  arc  are  for  the  complicated 
man  not  sufficient  to  bring  to  his  brain  all  the 
stimulations  which  need  motor  adjustment  or  to 
produce,  even  with  the  tools  of  civilization,  all 
the  reactions  which  would  be  nutritious,  protec- 
tive, and  creative.  If  one  acts  for  the  advantage 
of  others,  and  they  repay  it  by  acting  for  his 
benefit,  a  mutual  adjustment  can  be  reached  by 
which  a  much  larger  amount  of  advantageous 
motor  reaction  and  sensory  stimulation  can  be 
secured  for  the  individual.  The  necessary  sup- 
position is  the  development  of  the  means  of 
communication  from  the  simplest  language  to 
the  cable  and  the  printing  press  and  the  coin, 
and  the  result  is  the  market  and  the  state. 

And  yet  this  civilized  man  with  his  warships 
and  newspapers  and  universities  is  not  better 
adapted  to  his  conditions  of  life  than  the  micro- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  79 

scopical  rhizopod  to  its  simpler  conditions ;  in 
both  cases  nature  has  produced  that  development 
of  the  reaction  apparatus  which  is  in  its  function- 
ing useful  to  the  organism,  and  its  very  useful- 
ness gives  us  a  foothold  for  explanation.  We 
naturally  think  here  of  one  side  of  human  life 
which  seems  so  fully  to  contradict  such  a  biolo- 
gical construction  that  the  whole  theory  appar- 
ently loses  its  value.  Man  is  an  ethical  being, 
and  our  morality  finds  its  value  just  in  the  fact 
that  we  act  without  reference  to  our  personal 
advantage.  Nature  cannot  produce  according 
to  biological  laws  an  apparatus  which  possesses 
normally  functions  which  are  useful  to  other 
individuals  but  disadvantageous  to  the  acting 
organism.  Actions  in  the  interest  of  the  off- 
spring form  an  exception  which  explains  itself 
and  confirms  the  rule,  but  the  moral  action 
seems  indeed  inexplicable  as  long  as  every  action 
is  explained  as  a  biologically  necessary  reaction 
of  the  organism.  But  we  must  separate  the 
motives  of  the  ethical  action  from  the  action 
itself ;  the  anticipated  idea  may  be  to  the  advan- 
tage of  the  neighbor  only,  and  yet  the  action 
may  have  effects  which  are  indirectly  advanta- 
geous to  the  actor.  In  our  ethical  functions  we 
perform  reactions  which  we  do  not  need  for 
ourselves,  but  just  that  we  are  doing  all  the 
time  in  our  economical  functions  also ;  the  shoe- 
maker makes  many  more  shoes  than  are  necessary 


80  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

to  protect  his  foot.  In  our  economical  functions 
we  hope  and  wait  for  the  exchange,  in  our 
ethical  functions  we  do  not  wait  for  it,  but  the 
exchange  comes  nevertheless,  and  only  because 
it  comes  in  the  long  run  could  nature  afford  to 
create  this  kind  of  reaction  apparatus.  To  re- 
ceive all  the  great  advantages  which  we  enjoy 
when  others  are  good  and  helpful  and  generous 
to  us,  there  is  only  one  way  —  we  must  be 
generous  and  good  and  helpful  ourselves.  If  it 
were  otherwise  nature  would  have  abolished  the 
luxury  of  variations  in  such  moral  directions. 
We  praise  the  sacrifice  of  life  as  the  highest 
ethical  action,  and  it  is  indeed  clear  that  here,  at 
least,  no  exchange  is  possible,  after  the  action,  if 
we  do  not  admit  fame  as  a  substitute.  But  here 
ethical  appreciation,  which  considers  the  motive 
only  and  not  the  effects,  does  not  bind  biology. 
From  a  biological  standpoint  the  ethical  sacrifice 
of  life  is  not  a  proof  against  the  principle  that 
every  psychophysical  action  is  useful  to  the  actor ; 
it  is  merely  a  case  of  overfunctioning.  We 
have  no  useful  organ  in  our  body  which  cannot 
kill  us  when  we  overwork  it ;  if  we  run  too  fast 
our  heart  may  kill  us.  Whenever  the  useful 
ethical  apparatus  functions  with  an  abnormal 
intensity,  life  is  lost,  but  that  this  intensity  is 
really  abnormal  follows  simply  from  the  fact 
that  if  the  voluntary  sacrifice  of  life  were  a 
normal  function  there  would  be  no  next  genera- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   PHYSIOLOGY  81 

tion  to  learn  and  to  imitate  that  prescription. 
In  short,  the  biologist  finds  no  difficulty  in  bring- 
ing the  totality  of  the  psychophysical  functions 
under  the  biological  and  therefore  ultimately 
under  the  mechanical  aspect ;  that  postulate  of 
psychology  is  in  this  respect  thus  reaHzable. 
That  such  biological  construction  does  not  touch 
at  all  the  problems  of  the  real  life  and  of  ethics 
is  a  matter  of  course. 

VIII 

It  may  then  be  granted  that  the  usefulness 
and  adaptedness  of  the  psychophysical  functions 
•would  not  contradict  the  mere  mechanical  char- 
acter of  the  substratum  upon  whose  causal  func- 
tions we  must  think  the  psychical  connections 
dependent.  But  we  had  a  second  chief  objec- 
tion before  us.  The  structure  of  the  brain  seems 
far  too  uniform  to  furnish  a  sufficient  manifold- 
ness  of  functions  if  we  really  demand  a  physio- 
logical process  corresponding  to  every  possible 
variation  of  the  content  of  consciousness.  The 
mere  number  of  elements  cannot  be  decisive  ; 
if  they  are  all  functionally  coordinated  they  can 
offer  merely  the  basis  for  coordinated  psychical 
functions.  If  we  have  psychical  functions  of 
different  orders,  it  would  not  help  us  even  if  we 
had  some  millions  more  of  the  uniform  elements. 
It  would  be  useless  to  deny  that  here  indeed  exists 
a  great  difficulty  for  our  present  psychology ;  the 


82  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

only  question  is  whether  this  difficulty  really 
opposes  the  demands  and  suppositions  of  psy- 
chology or  whether  it  means  that  the  usual  the- 
ories of  to-day  are  inadequate  and  must  be  im- 
proved. It  seems  to  me  that  the  latter  is  the 
case,  and  that  hypotheses  can  be  constructed 
by  which  all  demands  of  psychology  can  be  satis- 
fied without  the  usual  sacrifice  of  consistency. 
The  situation  is  the  following  :  — 

The  whole  scheme  of  the  physiologists  operates 
to-day  in  a  manif oldness  of  two  dimensions :  they 
conceive  the  conscious  phenomena  as  dependent 
upon  brain  excitements  which  can  vary  firstly 
with  regard  to  their  localities  and  secondly  with 
regard  to  their  quantitative  amount.  These  two 
variations  then  correspond  to  the  quality  of  the 
mental  element  and  to  its  intensity.  In  the 
acoustical  centre,  for  instance,  the  different  pitch 
of  the  tone  sensations  corresponds  to  locally 
different  ganglion  cells,  the  different  intensities 
of  the  same  tone  sensation  to  the  quantity  of  the 
excitement.  Association  fibres  whose  functions 
are  not  directly  accompanied  by  conscious  experi- 
ences connect  these  millions  of  psychophysical 
elementary  centres  in  a  way  which  is  imagined 
on  the  model  of  the  peripheral  nerve.  No  seri- 
ous attempt  has  been  made  to  transcend  this  sim- 
ple scheme.  Certainly  recent  discussions  have 
brought  many  propositions  to  replace  the  simple 
physiological  association  fibre  which  connects  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  83 

psychophysical  centres  by  more  complicated  sys- 
tems, —  theories,  for  instance,  in  regard  to  the 
opening  and  closing  of  the  connecting  paths  or 
in  regard  to  special  association  centres  or  special 
mediating  cell  groups,  —  but  these  and  others 
stick  to  the  old  principle  that  the  final  psycho- 
physical process  corresponds  to  the  strength  and 
locality  of  a  sensory  stimulation  or  of  its  equiva- 
lent reproduction,  whatever  may  have  brought 
about  and  combined  the  excitements. 

It  is  true  that  it  has  been  sometimes  suggested 
that  the  same  ganglion  cell  may  also  go  over  into 
qualitatively  different  states  of  excitement,  and 
thus  allow  an  unlimited  manifoldness  of  new 
psychophysical  variations.  But  it  is  clear  that 
to  accept  such  an  hypothesis  means  to  give  up 
all  the  advantages  of  brain  localization.  The 
complicatedness  of  the  cell  would  be  in  itself 
sufficient  to  give  ground  to  the  idea  that  its 
molecules  may  reach  some  millions  of  different 
local  combinations ;  and  if  every  new  combina- 
tion corresponds  to  a  sensation,  all  the  tones  and 
colors  and  smells  and  many  other  things  may  go 
on  in  one  cell.  But  then  it  is  of  course  our  duty 
to  explain  those  connections  and  successions  of 
different  states  in  one  cell,  and  that  would  lead 
to  conceiving  the  cell  itself  as  constructed  with 
millions  of  paths  just  like  a  miniature  brain  ;  in 
short,  all  the  difficulties  would  be  transplanted 
into  the  unknown  structure  of  the  cell.    If  we. 


84  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

on  the  other  hand,  do  not  enter  into  such  spec- 
ulations, the  acceptance  of  qualitative  changes 
in  the  cell  would  bring  us  to  the  same  point 
as  if  we  were  satisfied  to  speak  of  qualitative 
changes  of  the  brain  in  general.  It  would  not 
solve  the  problem  but  merely  ignore  it,  and 
therefore  such  an  additional  hypothesis  cannot 
have  weight. 

The  only  theory  which  brings  in  a  really  new 
factor  is  the  theory  of  innervation  feelings. 
This  well-known  theory  claims  that  one  special 
group  of  conscious  facts,  namely,  the  feelings  of 
effort  and  impulse,  are  not  sensations  and  there- 
fore not  parallel  to  the  sensory  excitements,  but  are 
activities  of  the  consciousness  and  parallel  to  the 
physiological  innervation  of  a  central  motor  path. 
At  this  point  of  course  comes  in  at  once  the 
opposition  of  the  philosophical  claim  that  every 
psychical  fact  must  be,  as  we  have  seen,  a  con- 
tent of  consciousness,  and  made  up  of  sensations, 
that  is,  of  possible  elements  of  ideas,  to  become 
describable  and  explainable  at  all.  The  so-called 
active  consciousness,  the  philosopher  must  hold, 
has  nothing  to  do  with  an  activity  of  the  con- 
sciousness itself,  as  consciousness  means  from 
the  psychological  standpoint  only  the  kind  of 
existence  of  psychical  objects.  It  cannot  do 
anything,  it  cannot  have  different  degrees  and 
functions,  it  only  becomes  conscious  of  its  con- 
tents, and  all  variations  are  variations  of  thp 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  85 

content,  which  must  be  analyzed  without  remain- 
der into  elements  which  are  theoretically  coordi- 
nated with  the  elements  of  ideas,  that  is,  with  the 
sensations,  while  consciousness  is  only  the  general 
condition  for  their  existence.  But  also  the  em- 
pirical analysis  and  experiment  of  the  practical 
psychologist  are  in  this  case  in  the  greatest  har- 
mony with  such  philosophical  claims  and  opposed 
to  the  innervation  theory.  The  psychologist 
can  show  empirically  that  this  so-called  feeling 
of  ejffort  is  merely  a  group  of  sensations  like 
other  sensations,  reproduced  joint  and  muscle 
sensations  which  precede  the  action  and  have 
the  role  of  representing  the  impulse  merely  on 
account  of  the  fact  that  their  anticipation  makes 
inhibitory  associations  still  possible.  It  would 
thus  from  this  point  of  view  also  be  illogical 
to  think  the  psychophysical  basis  of  these  sen- 
sations different  in  principle  from  that  of  other 
sensations.  If  the  other  sensations  are  accom- 
paniments of  sensory  excitements  in  the  brain, 
the  feelings  of  impulse  cannot  claim  an  excep- 
tional position. 

But  are  quality  and  intensity  really  the  only 
differences  between  the  given  sensations  ?  Can 
the  whole  manifoldness  of  the  content  of  con- 
sciousness really  be  determined  by  variations  in 
these  two  directions  only  ?  Certainly  not ;  the 
sensations  can  vary  even  when  quality  and  inten- 
sity remain  constant.     As  an  illustration  we  may 


86  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

think,  for  instance,  of  one  variation  which  is 
clearly  not  to  be  compared  with  a  change  in  kind 
and  strength  of  the  sensation  ;  namely,  the  varia- 
tion of  vividness.  Vividness  is  not  identical 
with  intensity  ;  the  vivid  impression  of  a  weak 
sound  and  the  faint  impression  of  a  strong 
sound  are  in  no  way  interchangeable.  If  the 
ticking  of  the  clock  in  my  room  becomes  less  and 
less  vivid  for  me  the  more  I  become  absorbed 
in  my  work,  till  it  finally  disappears,  it  cannot 
be  compared  with  the  experience  which  results 
when  the  clock  to  which  I  give  my  full  attention 
is  carried  farther  and  farther  away.  The  white 
impression,  when  it  loses  vividness,  does  not 
become  gray  and  finally  black,  nor  the  large  size 
small,  nor  the  hot  lukewarm.  Vividness  is  a 
third  dimension  in  the  system  of  psychical  ele- 
ments, and  the  psychologist  who  postulates  com- 
plete parallelism  has  the  right  to  demand  that 
the  physiologist  show  the  corresponding  process. 
There  are  other  sides  of  the  sensation  for  which 
the  same  is  true ;  they  share  with  vividness  the 
more  subjective  character  of  the  variation,  as, 
for  instance,  the  feeling  tone  of  the  sensation  or 
its  pastness  and  presentness.  Other  variations 
bring  such  subjective  factors  into  the  complexes 
of  sensations  without  a  possibility  of  understand- 
ing them  from  the  combination  of  different  kinds 
only ;  for  instance,  the  subjective  shade  of  ideas 
we   beheve   or   the   abstractedness  of   ideas   in 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  81 

logical  thoughts.  In  short,  the  sensations  and 
their  combinations  show  besides  kind,  strength, 
and  vividness  still  other  variations  which  may 
best  be  called  the  values  of  the  sensations  and 
of  their  complexes.  In  the  interest  of  simplicity 
we  intentionally  neglected  these  subjective  sides 
of  the  sensations  when  we  discussed  the  methods 
of  description  ;  it  is  evident  that,  in  connecting 
the  sensation  with  the  physical  world  for  the  pur- 
poses of  description  these  sides  require  reference 
to  the  physical  relation  between  the  perceived 
object  and  the  organism.  Is  the  typical  theory 
of  modern  physiological  psychology,  which,  as  we 
have  seen,  operates  merely  with  the  local  differ- 
ences of  the  cells  and  the  quantitative  differences 
of  their  excitement,  ever  able  to  find  physiologi- 
cal variations  which  correspond  to  the  vividness 
and  to  the  values  of  the  sensations? 

An  examination  without  prejudice  must  neces- 
sarily deny  this  question.  Here  Hes  the  deeper 
spring  for  the  latent  opposition  which  the  psycho- 
physiological claims  find  in  modern  psychology. 
Here  are  facts,  the  opponents  say,  which  find  no 
physiological  counterpart,  and  we  must  therefore 
acknowledge  the  existence  of  psychological  pro- 
cesses which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  physio- 
logical machinery.  The  vividness,  for  instance, 
is  fully  explained  if  we  accept  the  view  that  the 
brahi  determines  the  kind  and  strenjrth  of  the 
sensation,   while  a   physiologically  independent 


88  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

subject  turns  the  attention  more  or  less  to  the 
sensation.  The  more  this  attention  acts  the  more 
vivid  the  sensation ;  in  a  similar  way  the  subjec- 
tive acts  would  determine  the  feeling  tone  of 
the  sensation  by  selection  or  rejection,  and  so  on. 
While  the  usual  theory  reduces  all  to  the  mere 
association  of  locally  separated  excitements,  such 
a  theory  emphasizes  the  view  that  the  physio- 
logically determined  functions  must  be  supple- 
mented by  an  apperceiving  subject  which  takes 
attitudes.  We  may  call  one  the  association 
theory,  the  other  the  apperception  theory.  We 
have  seen  that  the  association  theory  is  insuffi- 
cient to  solve  the  whole  problem,  but  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  emphasize  that  the  apperception 
theory  seeks  the  solution  from  the  start  in  a 
logically  impossible  direction,  and  is  thus  still 
more  mistaken  than  the  association  theory. 

The  apperception  theory,  whatever  its  special 
label  and  make-up  may  be,  does  not  see  that  the 
renunciation  of  a  physiological  basis  for  every 
psychical  fact  means  resigning  the  causal  ex- 
planation altogether,  since  psychical  facts  as  such 
cannot  be  linked  directly  by  causality,  and  that 
resigning  the  causal  aspect  means  giving  up  the 
only  purpose  for  which  the  inner  life  was  ever 
transformed  into  psychical  facts.  If  those  ap- 
perceptive functions  are  seriously  conceived  as 
without  physiological  basis,  they  represent  a 
manifoldness  which  can  be  linked  merely  by  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  89 

teleological  categories  of  the  real  life,  and  we 
sink  back  to  the  subjectifying  view  which  con- 
trols the  reality  of  life,  but  which  is  in  principle 
replaced  by  the  objectifying  view  as  soon  as  a 
psychical  object  is  acknowledged  as  such.  If 
the  apperception  theory,  on  the  other  hand, 
wants  to  live  up  to  the  demands  of  psychology, 
that  is,  to  give  causal  explanations,  it  can  do 
so  only  if  it  replaces  the  psychical  objects  by 
constructions  which  are  themselves  conceived 
on  the  analogy  with  physical  objects.  As  soon 
as  the  ideas  are  pictured  like  balls  which  are 
pushed  and  rolled,  then  of  course  a  kind  of 
pseudomechanics  and  pseudocausality  is  possible 
for  the  psychical  facts  themselves,  but  in  that 
case  the  whole  indirect  connection  of  psychical 
facts  by  means  of  the  brain  would  be  in  all 
respects  a  useless  theory  ;  we  have  then  sufficient 
direct  causality  between  the  ideas  themselves. 
Its  shortcoming  is  only  that  the  whole  system 
is  built  up  on  a  false  metaphor  which  is  to  be 
rejected  from  the  outset  because  it  gives  to  the 
psychical  fact  that  characteristic  which  by  the 
fundamental  principle  of  the  differentiation  of 
objects  into  physical  and  psychical  is  necessarily 
reserved  for  the  physical  objects. 

Of  course  the  illogical  apperception  theory 
would  not  return  in  psychology  in  so  many 
forms,  did  it  not  favor  the  illusion  that  it  is  less 
opposed  than  the  association  theory  to  the  emo- 


90  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

tional  demands  of  man.  It  is  the  old  psycho* 
logistic  absurdity  that  any  theoretical  idea  about 
psychological  objects  can  touch  the  subjectify- 
ing interests  of  the  real  life.  The  apperception 
theory,  which  comes  home  with  the  news  that 
there  is  a  corner  in  the  psychical  world  where 
no  causal  explanation  has  as  yet  been  found,  is 
then  welcomed  as  the  bringer  of  happy  hopes ; 
till  later  advices  come  we  can  still  feel  ourselves 
free  and  dignified.  The  philosophical  under- 
standing of  that  which  we  mean  by  a  psycho- 
logical truth  and  by  a  transformation  into  psy- 
chical objects,  a  transformation  which  would  be 
utterly  meaningless  if  the  apperception  theory 
were  correct,  is  the  only  scientific  way  of  over- 
coming such  illusory  conflicts.  As  soon  as  this 
fundamental  misunderstanding  about  the  mean- 
ing of  psychophysical  theories  has  taken  place, 
it  is  quite  natural  that  the  most  extreme  form  of 
the  apperception  theory  should  have  the  best 
popular  chances.  It  would  be  represented  in 
the  so-called  transmission  theory,  which  considers 
the  brain  as  unessential  for  the  causal  connec- 
tions of  the  psychical  facts  and  acknowledges 
its  function  merely  as  an  organ  of  transmission, 
whose  destruction  would  not  hinder  the  temporal 
continuation  of  the  causal  connection  of  psychi- 
cal objects.  The  immortality  which  the  trans- 
mission theory  seeks  to  secure  to  us  is  thus 
the  continuous  repetition  of  objects  which  have 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  91 

nothing  in  common  with  the  real  experiences  of 
our  inner  life,  and  which  cannot  claim  anything 
else  than  the  fact  that  the  psychologist  must 
construct  them  for  the  purpose  of  transforming 
the  teleological  reality  into  a  causal  system. 
Needless  to  say  after  all  these  discussions  that 
this  real  subjective  life  cannot  possibly  be  in- 
terested in  any  psychophysiological  theory,  and 
that  with  the  association  and  apperception  and 
transmission  theories  equally  it  connects  not  the 
slightest  emotional  value,  except  those  of  logical 
satisfaction  and  disappointment.  The  philosopher 
who  bases  the  hope  of  immortality  on  a  theory 
of  brain  functions  and  enjoys  the  facts  which 
cannot  be  physiologically  explained,  stands,  it 
seems  to  me,  on  the  same  ground  with  the  astro- 
nomer who  seeks  with  his  telescope  for  a  place 
in  the  universe  where  no  space  exists,  and  where 
there  would  be  thus  undisturbed  room  for  God 
and  the  eternal  bodiless  souls. 

We  do  not  here  enter  upon  metaphysical  ques- 
tions ;  we  discuss  the  empirical  brain  theory,  and 
only  deny  to  the  apperception  theory  the  claimed 
right  to  recommend  itself  by  illusory  metaphysi- 
cal promises.  But  does  this  bankruptcy  of  all 
varieties  of  apperception  theories  necessarily 
force  us  back  to  the  association  theory  ?  I  do 
not  think  so.     The  demand  of  the  association 


92  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

theory  that  every  psychosis  should  be  accom- 
panied by  a  neurosis  cannot  be  given  up,  but 
this  neurosis  may  be  thought  in  a  richer  way 
than  in  the  scheme  of  the  associationists.  It 
seems  to  me,  indeed,  that  the  physiological  the- 
ory works  to-day  with  an  abstract  scheme  with 
which  no  observation  agrees.  We  do  not  know 
of  a  centripetal  stimulation  which  does  not  go 
over  into  centrifugal  impulses.  The  studies  on 
the  tonicity  and  actions  of  voluntary  muscles,  on 
the  changes  in  glands  and  blood  vessels,  on  tendon 
reflex  centres,  and  so  on,  show  how  every  psycho- 
physical state  discharges  itself  into  centrifugal 
functions.  And  yet  these  perceivable  peripheral 
effects  are  of  course  merely  a  small  part  of  the 
centrifugal  impulses  which  really  start  from  the 
end  stations  of  the  sensory  channel,  as  most  of 
them  probably  produce  only  new  dispositions  in 
lower  motor  centres  without  going  directly  over 
into  movement,  and  others  may  fade  away  in  the 
unlimited  division  of  the  discharge  in  the  ramifi- 
cation of  the  system.  Those  milliards  of  fibres 
are  not  merely  the  wires  to  pull  a  few  hundred 
muscles ;  no,  the  centrifugal  system  represents 
certainly  a  most  complex  hierarchy  of  motor 
centres  too,  and  the  special  final  muscle  impulse 
is  merely  the  last  outcome  of  a  very  complex 
cooperation  of  very  many  factors  in  the  centri- 
fugal system.  Manifold  as  the  incoming  nerve 
currents  must  be,  the   possibilities  of   centrifu- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  93 

gal  discharge  and  the  dispositions  in  the  nerv- 
ous motor  system  determine  the  degrees  in  which 
the  ganghon  cells  can  transform  the  centripetal 
into  centrifugal  stimulation.  It  is  thus  not 
only  the  foregoing  sensory  process,  but  in  ex- 
actly the  same  degree  also  the  special  situation 
of  the  motor  system,  its  openness  and  closed- 
ness,  which  governs  the  process  in  the  centre. 
Whether  the  special  efferent  channel  is  open 
or  plugged  implies  absolutely  different  central 
processes  in  spite  of  the  same  afferent  stimu- 
lus. 

Here  we  have,  then,  a  new  factor  on  the  phy- 
siological side,  which  is  ignored  in  the  usual 
scheme  that  makes  the  psychical  facts  dependent 
upon  the  sensory  processes  only  and  considers 
the  centrifugal  action  of  the  brain  as  a  later 
effect  which  begins  when  the  psychophysical 
function  is  over.  There  is  no  central  sensory 
process  which  is  not  the  beginning  of  an  action 
too,  and  this  centrifugal  part  of  the  central  pro- 
cess necessarily  varies  the  accompanying  psychi- 
cal fact  also.  As  here  the  action  of  the  centre 
becomes  the  essential  factor  in  the  psychophysi- 
cal process,  we  may  call  this  view  an  action 
theory  as  over  against  the  association  and  apper- 
ception theories  of  the  day.  The  action  theory 
agrees,  then,  with  associationism  in  the  postu- 
late that  there  is  no  psychical  variation  with- 
out variation  on  the  physiological  side,  and  with 


94  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

apperceptionism  in  the  conviction  that  the  mere 
association  of  sensory  brain  processes  is  insuffi- 
cient to  play  the  counterpart  to  such  subjective 
variations  of  the  psychical  facts  as  vividness  and 
values  of  the  sensations.  It  tries  to  combine 
the  legitimate  points  in  both  views,  and  claims 
that  every  psychical  sensation  as  element  of  the 
content  of  consciousness  is  the  accompaniment 
of  the  physical  process  by  which  a  centripetal 
stimulation  becomes  transformed  into  a  centri- 
fugal impulse. 

This  central  process  thus  clearly  depends  upon 
four  factors  :  firstly,  upon  the  local  situation  of 
the  sensory  track ;  secondly,  upon  the  quantitative 
amount  of  the  incoming  current ;  thirdly,  upon 
the  local  situation  of  the  outgoing  discharge; 
and  fourthly,  upon  the  quantitative  amount  of 
the  discharge.  The  first  two  factors  are  of  course 
determined  by  the  incoming  current,  which  can 
be  replaced  by  an  intra-cortical  stimulation  from 
an  associated  centre,  while  the  last  two  factors 
are  determined  by  the  dispositions  of  the  cen- 
trifugal system.  The  association  theory,  which 
considers  the  first  two  factors  alone,  thinks  them 
parallel  to  the  kind  and  strength  of  the  sensa- 
tion. The  action  theory  accepts  this  interpreta- 
tion, and  adds  that  the  two  other  factors  de- 
termine the  values  and  the  vividness  of  the 
sensation,  —  the  values  parallel  to  the  local  situa- 
tion of  the  discharge,  the  vividness  to  the  open- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  95 

ness  of  the  centrifugal  channel,  and  thus  to  the 
intensity  of  the  discharge. 

If  the  centrifugal  discharge  is  inhibited,  the 
channel  closed,  then  the  sensory  process  goes  on 
as  before,  but  the  impression  is  famt,  unper- 
ceived,  while  it  may  become  vivid  later  as  soon 
as  the  hindrance  to  the  discharge  disappears. 
The  inhibition  of  ideas,  which  remains  unex- 
plainable  to  the  associatiouists,  would  then  mean 
that  a  special  path  of  discharge  is  closed,  and 
thus  the  idea  which  needs  that  discharge  for  its 
vividness  cannot  come  into  existence  ;  the  hyp- 
notizer's  words,  for  instance,  close  such  channels. 
Only  discharges,  actions,  can  be  antagonistic,  and 
thus  under  mutual  inhibition  ;  ideas  in  themselves 
may  be  logically  contradictory,  but  not  psycho- 
logically while  one  action  makes  the  antagonistic 
action  indeed  impossible  and  the  inhibition  of 
ideas  results  merely  from  the  inhibition  of  dis- 
charges. If  this  view  is  correct,  it  is  clear  that 
while  we  strictly  deny  the  existence  of  special 
innervation  sensations,  we  can  now  say  that 
every  sensation  without  exception  is  physiologi- 
cally an  innervation  sensation,  as  it  must  have 
reached  some  degree  of  vividness  to  exist  psy- 
chologically at  all. 

With  regard  to  the  local  situation  of  the  motor 
discharge,  the  manifoldness  of  possibilities  is  evi- 
dent. The  channels  may  be  closed  in  one  direc- 
tion but  open  in  others ;  the  actually  resulting 


96  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

discharge  must  be  the  product  of  the  situation  in 
the  whole  centrifugal  system,  with  its  milliards 
of  ramifications,  and  the  same  sensory  stimu- 
lus may  thus  under  a  thousand  different  condi- 
tions produce  a  thousand  different  centrifugal 
waves,  all,  perhaps,  with  the  same  intensity.  The 
vividness  would  then  be  always  the  same,  and 
yet  the  difference  of  locahty  in  the  discharge 
must  give  new  features  to  the  psychical  element. 
A  few  cases  as  illustrations  must  be  sufficient. 
We  may  instance  the  shades  of  time-direction ; 
the  same  idea  may  have  the  subjective  character 
of  past,  present,  and  future.  It  corresponds  to 
three  types  of  discharge  :  the  discharge  which 
does  not  include  action  on  the  object  any  more 
appears  a  past;  that  which  produces  action  as 
present;  that  which  prepares  the  action  as  future. 
In  this  group  belong  also  the  feeling  tones  :  the 
pleasurable  shade  of  feeling  based  on  the  dis- 
charge towards  the  extensors,  the  unpleasant 
feelings  based  on  the  innervation  of  the  flexors. 
Here  belong  the  differences  between  mere  per- 
ception and  apperception,  as  iu  the  one  case  the 
discharge  is  determined  by  the  impression  alone, 
in  the  other  case  by  associations  also.  Here 
belong  the  characteristics  of  the  abstract  con- 
ception which  may  be  represented  by  the  same 
sensational  qualities  which  would  form  a  concrete 
idea  and  yet  has  a  new  subjective  tone  because 
the  centrifugal  discharge  is  for  the  concrete  idea 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY  97 

a  specialized  impulse,  for  the  conception  a  gen- 
eral impulse  which  would  suit  all  objects  thought 
under  the  conception.  Here  belongs,  also,  the 
feeling  of  belief  which  characterizes  the  judg- 
ment ;  the  judgment  differs  psychophysically 
from  the  mere  idea  in  the  fact  that  the  ideas 
discharge  themselves  in  a  new  tonicity,  a  new 
set  of  the  lower  motor  centres,  creating  thus  a 
new  disposition  for  later  reactions.  To  be  sure, 
many  of  these  discharges  lead  finally  to  muscle 
contractions  which  bring  with  them  centripetal 
sensations  from  the  joints,  the  muscles,  the  ten- 
dons, and  these  muscle  and  joint  sensations  them- 
selves then  become  a  part  in  the  idea,  for  instance, 
of  time,  of  space,  of  feeling.  But  the  new  part 
only  reinforces  the  general  tone  which  is  given 
in  the  general  discharge,  and  gives  to  it  only  the 
exact  detail  which  gets  its  character  just  through 
the  blending  of  these  sensations  of  completed 
reactions  with  the  accompaniments  of  the  cen- 
tral discharge. 

A  consistent  psychology  thus  starts  with  the 
following  principles  :  It  considers  all  variations 
of  mental  life  as  variations  of  the  content  of  con- 
sciousness, and  this  content  as  a  complex  object, 
including  in  this  first  presupposition  a  compli- 
cated transformation  of  the  real  inner  life,  a 
transformation  by  which  the  subjectifying  view 
of  real  life  is  denied  for  the  psychological  system. 
Every  content  of  consciousness  is  further  con- 


98  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  PHYSIOLOGY 

sidered  as  a  complex  of  sensations,  that  is,  of 
possible  elements  of  perceptive  ideas.  Every 
sensation  is  considered  as  having  a  fourfold 
manifoldness,  varying  in  kind,  in  strength,  in 
vividness,  and  in  value.  The  physiological  basis 
of  every  sensation  and  thus  of  every  psychical 
element  is  the  physical  process  by  which  a  cen- 
tripetal stimulation  becomes  transformed  into  a 
centrifugal  impulse,  the  kind  depending  upon  the 
locality  of  the  centripetal  channel,  the  strength 
upon  the  quantity  of  the  stimulus,  the  value 
upon  the  locality  of  the  centrifugal  channel, 
and  the  vividness  upon  the  quantity  of  the 
discharge.  Every  transformation  of  the  chaos 
of  so-called  facts  in  the  direction  towards  these 
ends  which  are  determined  by  epistemology  adds 
something  to  the  system  of  psychological  sci- 
ence. 

Also  for  these  ultimate  transformations  in  the 
service  of  explanation  is  valid  what  we  empha- 
sized in  regard  to  description.  The  scientist 
must  do  his  work  continually  with  the  feeling 
that  he  seeks  and  discovers  facts  which  preceded 
his  seeking  and  which  he  merely  brings  to 
view.  But  the  philosopher,  at  least,  cannot  for- 
get that  such  is  a  low  conception  of  truth,  and 
that  the  work  is  a  transformation  of  the  reality 
for  the  fulfillment  of  our  logical  ideals  which 
takes  place  ultimately  in  the  service  of  our 
duties.    The  seeker  for  truth  is  not  a  miner  who 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   PHYSIOLOGY  99 

digs  and  digs  in  the  clay  of  reality  till  he  by 
chance  finds  a  lump  of  gold  with  his  shovel,  gold 
which  has  slumbered  there  for  eternities.  The 
seeker  for  truth  creates  like  the  sculptor  who 
takes  the  valueless  clay  of  reahty  to  transform  it 
under  his  hands  into  the  precious  plastic  work 
which  harmonizes  with  his  ideals. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

I 

The  defender  of  idealistic  convictions  who 
arms  himself  with  philosophical  arguments  to 
fight  against  materialism  finds  himself  in  com- 
bat, not  with  one  group  alone,  but  with  two  — 
with  those  who  through  serious  arguments  come 
to  an ti  -  idealistic  views  and  with  those  who 
adopt  idealism  without  arguments  at  all.  They 
may  favor  idealism  through  sentimentality,  or 
through  mysticism,  or,  the  more  frequent  case, 
through  laziness  and  mere  lack  of  understand- 
ing the  arguments  of  the  other  side ;  their 
view  has  no  sohd  foundation,  no  consistency,  no 
power  of  resistance.  With  the  first  group  you 
can  argue  ;  with  the  second  group  you  cannot 
debate,  as  you  speak  a  different  language  and 
think  with  a  different  logfic.  As  soon  as  the 
real  fight  begins,  you  feel  that  the  coincidence 
of  aims  is  only  a  chance  result  without  signifi- 
cance ;  the  help  of  these  friends  is  only  a  hin- 
drance and  a  trouble,  and  they  ought  to  be  sent 
away,  like  the  women  and  children  of  a  besieged 
city  before  the  real  bombardment  begins. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   EDUCATION  101 

This  old  experience  came  to  me  with  unusual 
force  when  a  short  time  ago  I  expressed  my 
educational  convictions,  which  take  the  ideal- 
istic view  of  the  teacher's  work  as  against  the 
materialistic  doctrines  of  certain  psychological 
schools.  I  maintained  in  some  magazine  articles 
that  the  individual  teacher  cannot  make  any 
direct  use  of  physiological  and  experimental  psy- 
chology for  his  teaching  methods.  Why  this 
view  alone  lies  in  the  line  of  idealism  we  shall  see 
later.  My  articles  were  sharply  attacked  from 
the  other  side,  as  the  progress  of  a  discussion 
demands,  and  I  was  ready  to  go  on  fighting. 
But  at  the  same  time  I  was  applauded  by  sym- 
pathizers who  did  not  care  for  my  arguments  at 
all,  and  who  hailed  my  side  only  because  it  was 
much  more  convenient  not  to  study  psychology 
and  education.  They  cried  naively  :  "  Of  course 
the  man  is  right ;  all  experimental  and  physiolo- 
gical psychology  is  nonsense,  and  all  study  of 
education  is  superfluous ;  let  the  teachers  do  just 
as  they  like ;  our  grandfathers  made  it  just  so." 
From  day  to  day  I  became  more  doubtful  with 
which  side  I  disagreed  more  fully.  If  I  warn 
education  not  to  make  progress  in  a  wrong 
direction,  must  I  proclaim  by  that  that  we  ought 
to  go  backward?  If  I  denounce  a  dangerous 
misuse  of  experimental  psychology,  do  I  there- 
by attack  experimental  psychology  itself  ?  If  I 
assert  that  the  interest  of  the  teacher  ought  not 


102  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

to  go  in  a  misleading  direction,  do  I  demand  by 
that  that  the  teacher  ought  to  be  dull  and  with- 
out interest  ?  If  I  regret  that  something  has  be- 
come the  fad  of  dilettants,  do  I  ask  by  that  that 
scholars  also  ought  not  to  deal  with  it  ?  and  if  I 
find  fault  with  the  recent  development  of  child 
study,  do  I  imply  by  that  the  belief  that  we  do 
not  need  a  modern  science  of  education  ?  As  long 
as  such  confusion  exists  among  assenters  equally 
with  dissenters,  we  do  not  need  so  much  argu- 
mentation as  discrimination.  We  must  have 
clearness  and  exact  definitions  before  we  decide 
about  consent  or  opposition ;  and  it  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  dissolve  the  whole  interlaced  mass  of 
conceptions  like  child  study,  child  psychology, 
experimental  psychology,  physiological  psycho- 
logy, educational  psychology,  education,  instruc- 
tion, school  teaching,  etc.,  etc. ;  but  we  must 
clear  up  above  all  the  manifoldness  of  possible 
relations  between  these  factors.  An  unpretend- 
ing effort  in  this  direction  is  the  only  direct 
purpose  of  the  following  lines;  they  try  only 
to  separate  clearly  the  different  questions  and  to 
show  soberly  what  some  of  us  want  and  what  we 
do  not  want.  I  do  not  fight  now  ;  I  only  peace- 
fully draw  a  map  which  indicates  the  different 
opposing  positions. 

We  recognize  at  the  first  glance  that  our 
whole  group  of  conceptions  has  two  central 
points  which  are  logically  independent  of  each 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  103 

other :  the  child  and  psychology.  To  simplify 
the  matter,  we  may  start  with  these  two  ideas 
only.  Psychology  is  the  science  which  describes 
and  explains  mental  phenomena,  and  what  a 
child  is  we  know  perhaps  better  without  than 
with  a  scholarly  definition.  Let  us  only  keep  in 
mind  that  in  the  happy  fields  of  child  study 
childhood  lasts  from  the  cradle  to  the  end  of 
adolescence,  usually  to  the  twenty-fifth  year.  It 
is  clear  that  even  between  these  two  conceptions 
a  number  of  relations  are  possible,  and  the  will- 
ingness to  transform  one  of  these  relations  in 
reality  does  not  include  the  duty  to  do  the  same 
with  the  others.  The  child,  for  instance,  can 
be  taught  psychology,  or  it  can  be  taught  after 
the  scheme  of  psychology,  or  it  can  be  an  object 
of  psychology,  or  it  can  be  an  instrument  of 
psychology,  and  so  forth.  AVe  can  be  enthusi- 
astic for  the  one  and  nevertheless  at  the  same 
time  detest  the  other. 

The  simplest  of  the  cases  mentioned  is  the 
first :  the  child  may  learn  psychology.  But  even 
here  several  modifications  are  possible,  as  it  may 
be  learned  at  different  ages,  by  different  methods, 
and  different  parts  of  psychology  may  be  in 
question.  I  for  one  should  say  that  there  is  a 
field  here  for  sound  and  productive  work,  and 
that  we  should  not  be  hindered  and  crippled  by 
the  lack  of  experience  in  this  region,  or  by  the 
pitiable  results  which  have  had  to  be  recorded 


104  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

in  the  past  when  an  antiquated  and  indigesti- 
ble psychology  was  taught  by  incompetent  per- 
sons to  unwilling  pupils,  by  the  driest  possible 
methods.  For  the  instruction  in  modern  em- 
pirical psychology,  at  least  in  its  elements,  the 
high  school  seems  not  at  all  too  early  a  stage ; 
only  the  work  must  be  fully  adapted  to  the  prac- 
tical experiences  of  the  child,  must  be  richly 
illustrated  by  simple  experimental  demonstra- 
tions, and  must  be  given  by  competent  men  who 
could  make  a  whole  address  out  of  every  sen- 
tence they  speak.  There  are  few  fields  where  a 
born  teacher  can  better  show  his  power  and  his 
wits.  Philosophical  psychology,  including  the 
historical  forms  of  rational  and  speculative  psy- 
chology, —  certainly  a  most  important  subject  for 
the  college  student,  —  like  all  other  real  philoso- 
phy, decidedly  does  not  belong  in  the  school ;  the 
more  so  as  any  instruction  in  philosophy  which 
means  more  than  drill  in  logic  and  preaching  in 
ethics  can  become  valuable  in  any  case  only  if  a 
real  scholar,  and  not  a  second-hand  man,  offers 
it.  I  should  also  exclude  from  the  school  the 
relations  of  psychology  to  the  details  of  brain 
physiology  and  the  whole  of  pathological  psy- 
chology, and  above  all  child  psychology ;  the 
more  so  since  we  cannot  hope  that  everybody 
would  be  in  the  happy  situation  of  the  teacher 
who  reports  in  the  "  Pedagogical  Seminary,"  the 
leading    magazine    for    child    study,   that   she 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  105 

brought  a  baby  of  three  weeks  into  the  class- 
room to  demonstrate  its  smiling  and  crying  and 
other  functions  of  similar  alarming  interest.  If 
we  keep  at  a  safe  distance  from  such  compromis- 
ing caricatures  we  can,  I  believe,  expect  highly 
valuable  results  from  psychology  instruction  in 
the  school. 

But  the  possibility  of  teaching  psychology  in 
schools  is  not  at  all  confined  to  regular  courses 
about  the  whole  subject;  special  chapters  of 
psychology  find  a  most  natural  place  in  the 
different  fields  of  the  usual  school  work.  It  is 
impossible  to  teach  physics  without  discussing 
acoustical  and  optical  sensations ;  the  drawing 
teacher  may  discuss  the  conditions  of  our  space 
perception  or  optical  illusions  or  the  seeing  of 
colors ;  the  study  of  history  or  literature  not 
seldom  brings  with  it  a  psychological  analysis  of 
the  higher  mental  states,  and  a  school  child's 
curiosity  rushes  again  and  again  to  questions 
which  only  a  sober  knowledge  of  psychology  can 
answer  satisfactorily.  It  seems,  therefore,  not 
too  much  to  demand  that  at  least  every  high- 
school  teacher  should  have  some  familiarity 
with  the  elements  of  psychology.  He  may  be 
asked  to  teach  it  as  a  whole  or  he  may  be 
obliged  to  interweave  parts  of  it  with  his  other 
work ;  in  any  case  he  ought  to  have  the  facts 
of  that  science  at  his  disposal  as  a  material 
which  he  can  teach  like  arithmetic  or  geography. 


106  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

This  alone  would  be  for  me  sufficient  reason  for 
welcoming  every  future  teacher  to  the  college 
courses  of  psychology,  but  this  attitude  would 
not  have  the  slightest  relation  to  the  other  ques- 
tion, whether  the  teacher  ought  to  know  psy- 
chology for  the  purpose  of  making  use  of  it  for 
his  professional  methods  of  teaching.  But  we 
do  not  stand  as  yet  before  this  latter  question, 
which  is  much  more  complicated.  If  we  follow 
up  the  different  relations  between  psychology 
and  the  child,  the  question  next  in  natural 
order  will  leave  educational  theory  still  out  of 

the  play. 

11 

We  have  asked  so  far  what  the  child  can  learn 
from  psychology ;  we  must  ask  now  what  psy- 
chology can  learn  from  the  child.  The  question 
divides  itself  at  once  into  many  ramifications. 
Even  if  we  abstract,  as  we  planned  to  do,  from 
all  practical  applications,  and  consider  only  the 
interests  which  psychology  as  a  theoretical  sci- 
ence  can  have  in  the  child,  we  must  from  the 
start  acknowledge  two  different  points  of  view 
which  are  too  often  confused.  The  child's  mind 
can  be  firstly  the  real  object  of  psychological 
study,  and  secondly  a  vehicle  for  the  study  of 
the  human  mind  in  general,  a  tool  in  the  hand 
of  the  psychologist.  It  is  the  same  doubleness 
which  we  find,  for  instance,  with  regard  to  the 
pathology  of  mental  life.    The  pathological  mind 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  107 

as  such  can  certainly  be  an  important  object  of 
study,  but  it  is  such  an  object  in  the  first  place 
for  the  psychiatrist,  not  for  the  psychologist. 
The  physician,  of  course,  makes  psychology  as 
a  whole  serve  the  need  of  these  pathopsycholo- 
gical  cases  which  he  analyzes  in  the  hope  of  im- 
proving them.  The  psychologist,  on  the  other 
side,  attends  to  such  abnormalities  only  as  devia- 
tions from  the  normal  soul,  —  variations  which 
seem  interesting  to  him  only  because  they  throw 
some  new  suggestive  side  light  on  the  normal 
processes.  He  studies  the  disturbed  harmony  in 
the  hope  that  the  caricature-like  exaggeration  of 
special  features  will  bring  out  a  fuller  under- 
standing of  their  normal  relations. 

In  exactly  the  same  way  we  can  approach  the 
child's  mind  as  an  object  worthy  of  our  interest 
in  and  for  itself,  prepared  to  make  use  of  our 
whole  general  psychological  knowledge  for  the 
exploration  of  this  new  field ;  or  we  can  tiu'n  to 
the  mental  life  of  childi-en,  with  the  purpose  of 
finding  through  this  study  new  paths  of  en- 
trance to  the  old  field  of  general  human  psy- 
chology. If  the  soul  of  the  child  is  the  object, 
all  studies  of  this  kind  group  themselves  with 
inquiries  about  other  sides  of  the  nature  of 
children,  with  the  anthropology  and  physiology 
and  pathology  of  the  child ;  a  bundle  of  inves- 
tigations for  which  the  name  "child  study"  is 
perfectly  correct,  while  to  some  ears  the  name 


108  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

"  paidology"  seems  to  sound  better.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  child's  mind  becomes  an  instru- 
ment for  investigating  the  phenomena  and  the 
laws  of  the  mental  mechanism,  then  of  course 
the  observation  and  experimentation  on  children 
is  merely  one  of  the  many  methods  of  empirical 
psychology,  coordinated  to  the  pathological  and 
hypnotical  and  physiological  and  other  methods 
which  supplement  by  ways  of  indirect  observa- 
tion the  direct  self-observation  of  our  laboratory 
work.  It  forms  then  a  narrower  group  together 
with  the  psychical  studies  of  animals  and  primi- 
tive races,  all  aiding  in  the  understanding  of  the 
complicated  mental  life  of  the  highly  developed 
adult  man,  by  showing  the  different  stages  of 
ontogenetic  and  phylogenetic  development.  Its 
special  function  can  then  well  be  compared  with 
the  service  of  embryology  to  general  human  ana- 
tomy. If  child  study  is  an  end  in  itself,  every 
fact  in  the  child's  mental  experiences  is  of  equal 
importance  or  at  least  of  equal  scientific  dignity ; 
if  it  is  only  a  method  in  the  service  of  psycho- 
logy, science  will  carefully  select  only  those  facts 
by  which  the  labyrinth  of  the  developed  mind 
becomes  simpler  and  clearer  while  everything  else 
remains  indifferent.  If  child  study  is  the  ob- 
ject, we  start  from  our  knowledge  of  the  man  to 
interpret  the  child ;  if  child  research  is  a  method, 
we  seek  knowledge  about  the  child  as  a  starting- 
point  for  our  interpretation  of  the  man. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  109 

This  is,  however,  not  the  only  point  of  view 
from  which  to  classify  the  manifold  efforts  which 
are  possible  in  this  realm ;  it  is  the  most  central 
division,  but  it  shows  cross-sections  with  many 
other  principles  of  division.  The  classification 
may,  for  instance,  refer  to  the  different  stages 
of  development,  especially  according  as  the  time 
before  or  in  or  after  school  hfe  is  in  question. 
But  still  more  important :  according  as  the  ob- 
servation goes  on  under  natural  conditions  or 
under  the  artificial  conditions  of  experiment; 
according  as  the  inquiries  are  of  individual  char- 
acter or  seek  for  statistical  results  on  the  basis 
of  large  numbers;  above  all,  according  as  the 
work  is  done  by  professional,  at  least  specially 
prepared,  psychologists  or  by  psychological  ama- 
teurs, who  may  be  most  excellent  creatures  in 
every  other  respect.  Of  course  an  exhaustive 
classification  ought  not  to  stop  here.  We  can 
divide  further ;  for  instance,  as  the  psychologists 
in  question  are  such  as  have  their  theories 
beforehand  or  such  as  do  not,  and  as  the  dilet- 
tants  who  observe  the  children  are  people  who 
know  that  they  do  not  know  psychology  or  peo- 
ple who  don't  know  even  that. 

The  possible  combination  of  all  these  factors 
secures  such  a  manifoldness  of  types  of  research 
in  this  field  that  the  mere  collection  of  the  results 
on  the  basis  of  coordination  would  contradict  all 
principles  of  scientific  methodology.     If  I  may 


110  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

be  allowed  a  word  of  criticism,  I  should  not 
hesitate  to  claim  that  child  study  ought  to  be  a 
method  and  not  an  end  ;  that  it  ought  to  be  done 
individually  and  not  statistically,  by  professionals 
and  not  by  dilettants,  more  by  natural  observa- 
tion and  less  by  experiments.  These  decisions 
hang,  of  course,  closely  together.  If  I  take 
paidology  as  a  science  by  itself,  then  perhaps 
I  should  also  share  that  enthusiasm  and  de- 
light over  heaps  of  statistical  and  experimental 
results  which  mothers,  teachers,  and  nurses  have 
brought  and  certainly  will  bring  together.  But 
all  my  instincts  about  the  inner  relations  and 
connections  of  human  knowledge  resist  to  the 
utmost  this  artificial  separation  of  child  psycho- 
logy from  general  psychology.  I  may  write  a 
special  book  on  the  mental  life  of  the  child  just 
as  I  can  write  a  monograph  on  memory  or  on  hyp- 
notism, but  it  has  a  final  right  of  existence  only  in 
virtue  of  its  necessary  place  in  the  whole  system 
of  psychology.  To  be  sure,  the  chief  reason  for 
taking  this  attitude  hes  in  a  conviction  which  I 
must  bring  forward  in  the  following  discussion 
again  and  again,  and  which  is  indeed  the  central 
motive  for  my  position  in  all  these  debates.  I 
shall  indicate  the  point  most  quickly  if  I  say : 
Psychology  is  a  study  of  mental  facts,  but  not 
every  study  of  mental  facts  is  therefore  psycho- 
logy. That  psychology  is  a  science  and  there- 
fore every  science  psychology,  probably  nobody 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  111 

pretends,  and  yet  the  logic  of  the  conclusion 
would  not  be  worse  than  that  which  is  so  often 
offered  to  us  when  every  gathering  or  interpre- 
tation or  statistics  of  mental  facts  is  claimed  as 
psychology.  Most  of  the  material  which  the 
friends  of  child  study  heap  together  is,  even  when 
mental  facts  and  not  physical  ones  are  in  ques- 
tion, nevertheless  not  psychology  at  all;  and 
that  small  remainder  which  really  contributes  to 
a  psychology  of  the  child's  mind  belongs  so 
clearly  to  general  psychology  that  nobody  would 
dream  of  an  artificial  separation  if  it  were  not 
usually  so  hopelessly  mixed  with  unpsychological 
odds  and  ends. 

Certainly  the  good  appetite  of  psychology  has 
sometimes  become  voracity  in  our  days,  and  she 
has  begun  to  devour  all  mental  sciences,  history 
and  social  life,  ethics  and  logic,  and  finally,  alas  ! 
metaphysics ;  but  that  is  not  a  development,  it 
is  a  disease  and  a  misfortune.  And  when  the 
necessary  conflict  between  such  high-handed  psy- 
chology and  the  deep-rooted  demands  of  the  true 
life  begins,  such  uncritical  science  must  burst 
asunder.  Psychology  would  learn  too  late  that 
an  empirical  science  can  be  really  free  and  pow- 
erful only  if  it  recognize  and  respect  its  limits, 
about  which  philosophy  alone  decides.  The  lim- 
its of  psychology  are  easily  understood.  Psy- 
chology considers  the  mental  life  as  an  object 
which  must  be  analyzed  and  explained,  analyzed 


112  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

into  elements  and  explained  by  laws.  The  psy- 
chologist, therefore,  silently  accepts  the  presup- 
position that  the  mental  life  is  such  an  object  and 
that  this  object  is  a  combination  of  elements  con- 
trolled in  their  connection  by  causal  laws.  In 
the  reality  of  our  inner  experience  our  mental 
life  has  not  at  all  these  characteristics :  the  ideas 
are  objects,  while  the  feelings  and  volitions  are 
subjective  activities,  and  these  objects  are  experi- 
enced as  wholes  and  units,  not  as  composita,  and 
these  activities  as  controlled  by  freedom,  not  by 
laws.  Psychology  thus  presupposes  for  its  pur- 
poses a  most  complicated  transformation  of  the 
reality,  and  any  attitude  toward  the  mental  life 
which  does  not  need  or  choose  this  special  trans- 
formation may  be  something  else,  but  it  is  not 
psychology.  Practical  life  and  history,  mental 
science  and  poetry,  logic  and  ethics,  religion  and 
philosophy,  all  deal  with  mental  life,  but  never 
with  psychology  as  sucb.  Not  the  material  but 
the  special  standpoint  characterizes  the  psycho- 
logist. 

Ill 

As  soon  as  we  are  clear  in  regard  to  this  ele- 
mentary philosophical  principle  we  cannot  in- 
deed doubt  any  longer  that  most  of  the  so-called 
child  psychology  is  partly  history,  partly  eco- 
nomics and  ethics,  partly  physiology,  partly  no- 
thing at  all,  but  is  decidedly  not  psychology.    To 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  113 

be  fair  I  choose  as  illustration  one  of  the  very 
best  investigations  in  the  field,  one  which  seems 
to  me  seriously  interesting  and  important :  the 
extended  statistical  studies  about  the  stock  of 
ideas  which  a  child  has  when  it  enters  the  school. 
The  differences  between  city  and  country  chil- 
dren, between  different  home  influences,  between 
different  nations,  and  so  forth,  come  clearly  to 
view,  and  the  results  suggest  a  continuation  of 
these  studies  —  but  these  results  do  not  belong 
to  psychology.  The  material  of  this  inquiry  is 
ideas,  but  these  ideas  not  with  regard  to  their  con- 
stitution and  their  elements,  but  with  regard  to 
their  practical  distribution  :  it  is  not  scientific  bot- 
any to  find  out  in  whose  yard  in  the  town  cherries, 
in  whose  yard  apples  grow.  Suppose  the  same 
investigation  made  for  adult  persons  :  among  a 
thousand  men  of  fifty  years  of  age  how  many 
have  had  impressions  from  such  and  such  ob- 
jects ?  How  many  have  seen  a  phonograph  and 
how  many  a  walrus  ?  The  results  would  be  a 
quite  interesting  contribution  to  the  history  of 
civilization,  but  nobody  would  think  of  classify- 
ing it  under  the  psychology  of  the  adult  man,  as 
we  do  not  learn  anything  about  the  psychologi- 
cal structure  and  origin  of  an  idea  if  we  know 
that  A  happened  to  experience  it  while  B  never 
had  a  chance.  Such  an  imitation  of  the  so- 
called  psychological  studies  on  children  by  sim- 
ilar studies  on  adults  will  perhaps  give  us  the 


114  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

readiest  insight  into  their  real  character.  The 
**  Pedagogical  Seminary "  offers  us  a  splendid 
collection  of  the  teasing  and  bullying  phrases 
which  are  in  the  mind  of  children,  or  it  reports 
•with  careful  statistics  that  among  845  children 
exactly  191  preferred  wax  dolls,  163  paper  dolls, 
153  china  dolls,  144  rag  dolls,  116  bisque  dolls, 
69  rubber  dolls,  and  so  on,  or  it  studies  the  love 
poems  of  boys  and  discovers  that  among  356 
poems  only  91  refer  to  the  eyes,  50  to  their  ex- 
pression, 41  to  their  color  —  blue  leading  with 
22.  We  could  choose  just  as  well  a  hundred 
other  illustrations.  Now  let  us  try  to  repeat 
such  inquiries  with  adult  men :  let  us  find  out 
what  preferences  they  have  in  cigarette-holders 
and  meerschaum  pipes,  or  how  often  they  refer 
to  the  eyes  in  flirting,  or  what  their  disponible 
material  of  nicknames  and  abusive  words  may 
be.  The  results  will  not  be  much  less  instruc- 
tive than  those  from  the  study  of  children,  but 
surely  you  would  not  call  them  psychology. 

If  we  thus  exclude  everything  which  is  not 
really  psychological,  there  still  remains  a  good 
set  of  problems  which  belong  strictly  to  the 
psychology  of  the  child ;  the  analytic  study 
of  its  perceptions  and  associations,  its  memory 
and  attention,  its  feelings  and  emotions,  its  in- 
stincts and  voHtions,  its  apperceptions  and  judg- 
ments, to  be  described  and  explained  with  regard 
to  their  elements  and  laws ;  but  this  group  can 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  115 

certainly  not  be  separated  from  the  psychology 
of  the  adult.  There  are  the  same  elements  and 
the  same  laws  building  up  the  mental  life  in  all 
its  different  stages  of  development.  The  study 
of  the  child's  mind  then  shows  itself  clearly  as 
that  which  we  claimed  it  to  be  :  one  of  the 
many  legitimate  methods  of  studying  the  mental 
laws  and  elements  in  general.  We  could  better 
have  a  special  botany  of  the  blossoms  or  a  zoo- 
logy of  the  eggs  as  scientific  ends  in  themselves 
than  a  separated  psychology  of  the  children. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  it  is  truly  a  method  and 
vehicle  of  general  mind  study,  then  certain  con- 
sequences are  unavoidable.  In  the  service  of 
general  psychology  child  study  must  first  select 
its  problems.  What  is  the  use  of  analyzing  with 
the  doubtful  means  of  indirect  observation  those 
psychical  states  which  we  can  find  as  the  objects 
of  direct  observation  in  our  own  minds?  Only 
that  must  be  selected  which  allows  us  to  push 
the  analysis  forward  by  showing  our  complicated 
states  as  preceded  by  simpler  and  simpler  ones. 
But  if  the  leading  principle  is  thus  a  selection 
of  material  best  fitted  for  clearing  up  the  de- 
velopment of  the  complex  combination  of  ele- 
ments, it  follows  that  the  study  of  individual 
children  is  by  far  superior  to  the  statistics  in 
which  the  individual  disappears,  and  that  pro- 
tracted observation  is  by  far  more  important 
than  the  experimental  investigation  of  a  special 


116  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

stage.  It  follows,  secondly,  that  the  work  must 
be  done  by  trained  specialists  or  not  at  all.  That 
child  study  which  has  for  its  aim  only  the  collec- 
tion of  curiosities  about  the  child,  as  an  end  in 
itseK,  may  be  grateful  to  the  nurse  who  writes 
down  some  of  the  baby's  naughty  answers  or  to 
the  teacher  who  sacrifices  half  an  hour  of  her 
lesson  to  make  experiments  in  the  classroom  to 
fill  out  the  blanks  that  are  mailed  to  her.  The 
students  of  that  scientific  child  psychology  which 
stands  in  the  service  of  the  general  mind  study 
know  how  every  step  in  the  progress  of  our  sci- 
ence has  depended  upon  the  most  laborious, 
patient  work  of  our  laboratories  and  the  most 
subtle  and  refined  methods,  and  that  all  this 
seductive  but  rude  and  untrained  and  untech- 
nical  gathering  of  cheap  and  vulgar  material 
means  a  caricature  and  not  an  improvement  of 
psychology.  And  it  is  not  only  the  lack  of  tech- 
nical training  which  brings  these  contributions 
so  near  to  hunting  stories  and  their  value  for 
scientific  biology.  No,  it  is,  above  all,  the  ab- 
sence of  the  psychological  attitude.  That  is  in 
my  eyes  not  an  opprobrium  against  the  teacher. 
I  consider  it  to  the  teacher's  credit  that  the 
child  is  not  an  object  of  analysis  for  him,  but  I 
blame  those  who  make  the  teacher  beheve  that 
his  observations  nevertheless  have  value  for  psy- 
chology. 

Of  course  I  know  that  some  of  the  more  sober 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  117 

leaders  of  this  movement  emphasize  very  little 
the  scientific  value  of  such  private  adventurous 
expeditions  of  parents  and  school-teachers,  and 
praise  most  highly  the  expected  result  that  the 
teachers  themselves  get  thus  a  more  vivid  inter- 
est in  the  children.  I  have  to  discuss  this  point 
later,  and  acknowledge  here  only  that  the  young 
scholars  themselves  begin  to  doubt  whether  the 
gossip  contained  in  these  blanks  means  science 
or  rubbish.  Those  who  doubt,  however,  ought 
not  to  find  comfort  in  the  frequent  comparison 
that  the  guileless  teacher  may  collect  the  facts  of 
the  young  souls  like  the  wanderer  who  brings 
plants  and  stones  home  which  the  naturalist  will 
use  later  as  material.  No,  psychological  ma- 
terial cannot  be  put  into  the  pocket  like  a  stone ; 
it  is  not  the  fixation  and  communication  of  the 
found  and  perceived  material  only  that  have 
their  difficulties,  but  the  finding  and  perceiving 
themselves  are  in  the  highest  degree  dependent 
upon  associations  and  theories  already  stored  up. 
Finally,  even  if  all  the  stuff  is  rehable  and 
truly  psychological,  still  we  ought  not  to  ex- 
aggerate our  hopes  for  real  information.  As 
long  as  the  thousand  little  facts  are  not  con- 
nected by  a  theory,  the  facts  are  dead  masses, 
and  if  they  are  only  illustrations  of  a  theory, 
they  do  not  teach  us  anything  new.  It  will 
be  a  very  exceptional  case  that  a  new  insight 
into  a  law  can  be  reached  in  this  chance  way ; 


118  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

physics,  in  spite  of  Bacon's  recommendation, 
has  certainly  never  reached  anything  in  this 
way.  At  best  the  result  will  be  a  psychologi- 
cal commonplace.  The  "  Pedagogical  Seminary" 
prints  375  thoughts  and  reasonings  observed  in 
children,  and  true  to  its  scientific  intention  it 
adds  that  this  material  is  not  sufficient.  But  I 
confess  that  I  do  not  see  what  profit  could  pos- 
sibly result  for  the  psychologist  from  even  three 
millions  of  such  sayings.  If  we  do  not  know 
the  general  facts  of  association,  attention,  apper- 
ception, and  conception,  then  the  whole  material 
is  mere  gossip  without  psychological  interest; 
and  if  we  do  know  them  and  presuppose  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  the  child  has  smaller  ex- 
periences, fewer  associations,  and  so  on,  then 
the  material  teaches  us  no  more  for  the  psy- 
chology of  thought  and  reasoning  than  a  collec- 
tion of  any  375  sentences  of  adult  persons  would 
do.  Yet  these  nobody  would  think  of  reprint- 
inffo  We  ought  not  to  deceive  ourselves  with 
trivialities.  It  is  not  science  to  make  exact  sta- 
tistics of  even  the  pebbles  on  the  road  or  to 
collect  the  description  of  a  hundred  cases  where 
the  law  of  gravity  was  confirmed  by  the  falling 
down  of  apples.  Let  us  delay  such  luxury  till 
the  real  duties  of  child  psychology  have  been 
fulfilled;  that  is,  till  in  the  service  of  psycho- 
logy the  development  of  single  mental  functions, 
especially  of  self -consciousness,  of  the  will,  of  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  119 

emotions,  and  of  the  ideas  of  space  and  time  in 
individual  children  have  been  studied  by  really 
competent  men  with  strictly  scientific  methods, 
a  line  of  work  in  which  our  gratitude  is  due  to 
Preyer,  Perez,  Stanley  Hall,  Baldwin,  Sully,  and 
other  psychologists  for  a  most  valuable  begin- 
ning. 

The  only  part  of  the  work  for  which  I  should 
welcome  the  cooperation  of  untrained  observers 
is  the  search  for,  not  the  real  study  of,  abnormal 
cases.  Pathological  abnormalities  in  the  child's 
mental  life,  in  its  emotions  and  imitations,  its 
feelings  and  its  will,  are  psychologically  decid- 
edly instructive,  and  the  psychologist  has  no  pos- 
sibility of  finding  them  if  the  layman  does  not 
draw  his  attention  to  them.  Such  unusual  devi- 
ations in  full  development  strike  the  eye  of  every 
man ;  no  special  psychological  attitude  is  neces- 
sary. 

Hitherto  our  question  has  been  only  to  what 
extent  theoretical  psychology  has  an  interest  in 
children.  In  practice,  however,  this  simple  issue 
becomes  far  more  complicated  by  the  hopes  and 
fears  which  may  be  connected  with  this  scientific 
work  in  the  interest  of  the  children  and  of  their 
educators.  Of  course  psychology  as  such  is  not 
concerned  in  this  question  ;  psychology  does  not 
work  for  a  social  premium  and  cannot  be  deter- 
mined in  its  course  by  social  anxieties.  But  the 
psychologist,  as  a  member  of  the  social  organ- 


120  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

ism,  has  to  adapt  his  endeavors  to  the  needs  of 
society ;  he  must  feel  encouraged  if  he  shares 
these  social  hopes  and  can  feel  himself  an  edu- 
cational benefactor,  and  he  will  modify  his  offi- 
cious disposition  if  he  becomes  convinced  of  the 
educational  fears.  The  pessimistic  group  sees  in 
all  psychological  experiments  on  children  an  un- 
sound interference  with  their  natural  develop- 
ment, a  kind  of  mental  vivisection  which,  by  its 
artificial  stimulations  and  tensions,  may  become 
harmful  to  the  health  of  the  nervous  system 
itself.  Even  observation  under  natural  condi- 
tions seems  to  them  of  unfavorable  influence  on 
the  naivete  and  naturalness  and  modesty  of  the 
young  subjects.  Above  all,  they  fear  that  the 
forced  change  of  attitude  in  the  teacher  will  do 
harm  to  the  whole  school  life.  In  the  interest 
of  the  teacher  himself  they  add  that  such  stud- 
ies in  the  schoolroom  burden  the  already  over- 
burdened man  with  work  for  which  he  him- 
self does  not  feel  sufficiently  prepared ;  that 
he  himself  feels  hampered  by  this  new  way  of 
looking  on  the  children,  not  as  friends,  but  as 
interesting  results  of  psychological  laws;  that 
he  needs  every  minute  of  his  school  hours  for 
his  lessons,  and  that  too  often  he  confronts 
the  dilemma,  either  to  follow  his  educational 
conscience  or  to  follow  a  superintendent  who 
believes  in  the  newest  educational  fad.  The 
optimistic  group  of  course  holds  to  the  exactly 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  121 

opposite  view,  sees  no  harm  for  the  children, 
but  the  bliss  of  a  deepened  interest  of  the  teach- 
ers in  the  children,  and  a  subsequent  lifting  of 
the  whole  standard  of  school  life.  It  is  clear 
that  such  a  background  of  antagonistic  social 
movements  complicates  highly  the  theoretical 
problem.  On  the  other  hand,  these  hopes  and 
fears  about  the  practical  effects  of  child  psycho- 
logy cannot  be  separated  from  the  wider  ques- 
tion what  the  teacher  has  to  expect  from  psy- 
chology in  general. 

IV 

Our  plan  to  map  out  the  whole  manifoldness 
of  antagonistic  tendencies  in  the  entire  psycho- 
educational  field  brings  us  thus  necessarily  to  a 
large  group  of  new  problems.  We  have  dis- 
cussed so  far  whether  the  child  can  study  psy- 
chology directly,  and  secondly,  whether  psycho- 
logy can  directly  study  the  child.  We  must  now 
ask  also  whether  psychology  cannot  have  indi- 
rectly an  influence  on  the  child  through  the 
medium  of  the  teacher ;  that  is,  whether  the 
work  of  the  teacher  can  be  modified  by  psycho- 
logy. But  the  question  shows  at  once  many 
important  subdivisions ;  if  we  do  not  consider 
them,  the  result  must  be  the  confusion  of  Babel. 
The  fact  that  we  spoke  before  of  the  value  of 
child  psychology  for  the  teacher,  and  are  now 
discussing  psychology  in  general,  suggests  from 


122  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

the  start  that  we  have  to  discriminate  the  differ- 
ent departments  of  our  science.  It  may  be  that 
child  psychology  is  educationally  useless  but 
physiological  psychology  excellent,  or  that  ex- 
perimental psychology  is  the  elixir  but  rational 
psychology  the  poison  of  education.  In  any 
case,  however,  we  have  no  right  to  throw  all 
such  methodologically  separated  parts  of  mind- 
study  together  and  to  decide  about  right  or 
wrong-  in  a  wholesale  manner.  But  another  di- 
vision  of  our  question  reaches  still  deeper :  is 
psychology  valuable  to  the  teacher  for  his  teach- 
ing methods  directly,  or  only  indirectly  through 
the  medium  of  a  scientific  educational  theory  ? 
In  the  first  case  the  teacher  himself  transforms 
his  psychological  knowledge  into  educational  ac- 
tivity; in  the  other  case  educational  theory  has 
accomplished  for  him  the  crystallization  of  edu- 
cational principles  out  of  psychological  sub- 
stances, and  he  can  follow  its  advice,  perhaps, 
even  without  himself  knowing  anything  about 
psychology.  The  two  cases  are  so  absolutely 
different  that  here,  still  more,  an  assenting  or 
dissenting  attitude  toward  the  one  proposition 
cannot  have  any  significance  at  all  with  regard 
to  the  other.  It  may  be  just  those  who  are 
convinced  that  the  teacher  ought  to  study  edu- 
cation, and  that  education  ought  to  make  the 
fullest  use  of  psychology,  who  form  the  strongest 
opponents   of   the   psychologizing   teacher  who 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   EDUCATION  123 

manufactures  his  private  educational  theory  from 
his  summer-school  courses  in  experimental  psy- 
chology. I  shall  therefore  separate  the  two 
questions  fully,  and  ask  first,  how  far  the  indi- 
vidual teacher  can  make  direct  use  of  psychology 
for  his  teaching ;  and  secondly,  how  far  psycho- 
logy is  useful  for  the  science  of  education. 

I  turn  to  the  first  question,  which  must  now, 
as  we  have  seen,  be  subdivided  with  regard  to 
the  different  departments  of  possible  mind  study. 
A  full  exposition  of  the  different  parts  of  psy- 
chology and  their  complicated  mutual  relations 
would  lead  us,  of  course,  far  beyond  the  limits 
of  this  essay,  but  we  cannot  avoid  giving  our 
attention  at  least  to  some  of  the  essential  points. 
Of  all  the  conceptions  in  question  only  that  of 
child  psychology  does  not  need  any  further  in- 
terpretation. We  have  seen  that  it  does  not  by 
any  means  include  every  scientific  interest  with 
regard  to  the  mental  Hfe  of  the  child,  but  only 
those  studies  which  consider  its  mental  life  under 
the  categories  of  psychology,  —  that  is,  with  re- 
gard to  their  elements  and  their  causal  laws ;  we 
have  seen  further  that  a  child  psychology  of  this 
type  does  not  claim  to  be  an  end  in  itself,  but 
only  a  method  of  general  psychology. 

Still  simpler,  if  rightly  understood,  is  the  situ- 
ation of  "  experimental  psychology."  Here  there 
is  still  less  doubt  that  it  is  separated  from  the 
other  branches,  not  by  its  special  objects,  but 


124  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

only  by  its  special  method  —  the  experiment. 
The  frequent  misunderstandings  which  exist  arise 
only  when  it  is  identified  with  indirect  observa- 
tion in  opposition  to  self -observation,  or  is  claimed 
as  a  mathematical  science  in  opposition  to  a 
merely  qualitative  analysis,  or  is  understood  as 
physiological  psychology.  All  that  is  impossible. 
In  the  first  place,  experimental  psychology  is  so 
little  in  opposition  to  self-observation  that  self- 
observation  forms  really  the  largest  part  of  ex- 
perimental psychology  ;  we  can  say  that  the  whole 
work  of  our  modern  psychophysical  laboratories 
must  be  characterized  as  essentially  introspection, 
but  introspection  under  artificial  conditions.  To 
be  sure,  experiments  with  indirect  observation 
also  are  possible,  such  as  experiments  on  hypno- 
tized subjects,  on  animals,  and  so  forth,  but  they 
are  only  exceptional  guests  in  our  laboratories. 
Experimental  psychology  in  any  case  exists  wher- 
ever psychological  observations,  direct  or  indirect, 
are  made  under  artificial  conditions  chosen  for 
the  special  purpose  of  the  observation.  Secondly, 
experimental  psychology  is  so  Httle  a  mathemati- 
cal science  that  every  hope  of  introducing  math- 
ematics, even  into  the  smallest  corner  of  it,  must 
readily  be  recognized  as  a  failure  in  principle. 
Psychical  facts  are  not  and  cannot  be  measur- 
able, and  the  more  and  less  in  our  mental  life 
never  means  an  addition  of  psychical  elements ; 
we  measure  the  physical  conditions,  but  never 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   EDUCATION  125 

the  mental  facts  themselves.  Finally,  experimen- 
tal psychology  is  so  far  from  identical  with  phy- 
siological psychology  that  we  may  even  say  that 
for  its  existence  it  does  not  need  any  relation  to 
physiology  at  all.  In  our  laboratories  we  study 
experimentally  association  and  memory,  attention 
and  apperception,  space  sense  and  time  sense, 
feelings  and  will,  without  being  obliged  to  re- 
cognize officially  that  there  exists  a  brain  at  all. 

That  brings  us  to  the  question  of  what  physio- 
logical psychology  is,  as  the  latter  statement  pre- 
supposes a  definition  of  the  term  with  which  not 
every  one  would  agree.  The  word  has  indeed 
been  used  with  quite  different  meanings.  We 
can  separate  especially  two  types  of  use,  a  wider 
and  a  narrower  one.  In  the  wider  sense  of  the 
word  physiological  psychology  means  the  study 
of  mental  phenomena  in  their  whole  relation  to 
physiological  processes,  central  or  peripheral,  in 
the  brain  or  in  the  sense  organs,  in  the  nerves 
or  blood  vessels  or  muscles.  In  the  narrower 
sense  it  means  only  the  study  of  the  relation 
between  the  mental  facts  and  the  accompanying 
physiological  brain  processes.  The  merely  ter- 
minological question  is  not  essential  for  us,  and 
it  is  indeed  in  part  only  terminological,  as  there 
cannot  be  any  doubt  that  studies  of  both  kinds 
are  legitimate.  Nevertheless  there  are  good  rea- 
sons for  getting  rid  of  the  first  use  of  the  word 
and  for  sticking  to  the  second.     The  first  use 


126  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

suggests  clearly  the  mistaken  idea  that  there 
can  be  a  psychology  which  does  not  refer,  not 
only  for  explanation  but  also  for  description  and 
analysis,  at  every  moment  to  peripheral  physical 
facts.  This  is  not  a  defect  or  a  caprice  of  our 
present  psychology  ;  for  epistemological  reasons 
there  can  never  be  any  analytic  description  of 
psychical  facts  which  does  not  refer  directly  or 
indirectly  to  the  physical  objects  which  are  in 
relation  to  our  organism.  The  psychical  fact  as 
such  is  just  as  indescribable  as  it  is  unmeasurable, 
since  it  is  the  object  which  by  its  very  nature 
exists  for  one  only  and  which  remains  therefore 
ever  incommunicable.  Every  attempt  to  have  a 
science  which  describes  mental  facts  must  thus 
at  every  stage  relate  the  psychical  facts  to  the 
physical  facts ;  in  short,  there  cannot  be  any  em- 
pirical psychology  at  all  which  from  beginning 
to  end  is  not  simply  physiological  psychology  in 
the  wider  sense  of  the  word.  The  addition  of 
the  word  "  physiological "  has  then  no  longer  any 
meaning ;  it  does  not,  if  we  think  consistently, 
mark  any  special  group  of  studies,  as  it  belongs 
to  all,  and  this  whole  is  certainly  better  charac- 
terized by  the  epithet  "  empirical,"  which  stands 
over  against  "  speculative,"  than  by  "  physiologi- 
cal," which  has  no  correlative  and  which  we  need 
much  more  for  a  special  group  of  psychophy- 
siological problems.  The  study  of  the  mental 
facts  in  their  relation  to  the  physiological  brain 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   EDUCATION  127 

processes  is  indeed  a  scientific  field  by  itself,  with 
its  own  anatomical  and  physiological  and  patho- 
logical methods  and  with  its  own  theoretical 
unity.  But  this  field  has  an  aspect  quite  different 
from  what  most  people,  and  even  most  teachers, 
believe.  They  believe  often  that  the  analysis 
of  psychical  facts  was  in  a  poor  and  rather  un- 
scientific condition  till  the  developed  brain  phy- 
siology, with  its  cells  and  fibres  and  gyri  and 
centres,  came  and  helped  her  poor  relation. 
Really  it  is  not  at  all  so.  Psychology  knows 
endlessly  more  about  these  details  than  physiology, 
and  in  the  development  of  the  special  psycho- 
physiological theories  psychology  has  always 
led,  and  taught  physiology  how  to  interpret  the 
chaos  of  brain  facts.  Brain  physiology  with- 
out psychology  would  have  been  perfectly  blind, 
while  psychology  without  detailed  brain  physio- 
logy would  have  stood  exactly  where  it  stands  to- 
day, if  we  allow  to  psychology  the  general  a  priori 
postulate  that  every  mental  fact  is  the  accom- 
paniment of  a  physical  process.  This  postulate 
is  merely  epistemological,  and  therefore  independ- 
ent of  our  knowledge  of  physiology.  We  must 
demand  it  because  mental  facts,  as  they  are  not 
quantitative,  cannot  enter  into  any  causal  equa- 
tion. The  demand  for  a  causal  interpretation 
of  the  mental  life  includes,  therefore,  the  postu- 
late that  it  must  be  transformed  so  tbat  every 
element  can  be  conceived  as  linked  with  a  physio- 


128  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

logical  process,  but  whether  that  process  is  going 
on  in  the  occipital  or  in  the  parietal  part  of  the 
brain  is,  for  psychology,  absolutely  indifferent. 
In  short,  the  whole  physiological  psychology 
consists  of  two  factors :  first,  a  general  theory 
of  psychophysiological  relations  which  is  based 
merely  on  philosophical  and  general  biological 
principles  and  does  not  need  physiology  at  all, 
and  second,  psychophysiological  details  which 
are  important  for  the  physiologist,  but  for  psy- 
chology are  a  useless  luxury.  The  special  physi- 
ology of  the  brain,  which  in  any  case  is  still  an 
almost  unknown  field,  does  not  therefore  help 
the  psychologist  anywhere ;  in  my  lectures  on 
psychology  before  my  students  I  hardly  speak 
at  all  about  the  brain  centres  and  the  ganglion 
cells,  and  to  base  on  them  psychological  insight 
turns  our  whole  knowledge  topsy-turvy. 


The  three  usually  vague  and  misinterpreted 
conceptions  of  child  psychology,  experimental 
psychology,  and  physiological  psychology  have 
now  taken  for  us  clear  and  sharp  forms,  and  we 
understand  the  relative  importance  of  their  aims. 
We  must  now  ask  of  what  use  they  are  for  the 
individual  teacher.  My  answer  is  simple  and  is 
the  same  for  all  the  three  branches  :  I  maintain 
that  they  are  not  of  the  slightest  use.  Whether 
the  special  mental  facts  are  in  the  one  or  the  other 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  129 

gyrus  of  the  brain,  whether  the  development  of 
the  child's  mind  favors  the  one  or  the  other 
theory  about  the  constitution  of  a  special  mental 
phenomenon  with  regard  to  its  psychophysical 
elements,  and  finally,  whether  laboratory  experi- 
ments follow  this  or  that  track,  are  questions  of 
absolutely  no  consequence  to  the  teacher.  Of 
course  I  have  not  the  right  to  speak  about  my 
personal  attitude,  as  I  started  to  show  objec- 
tively the  opposing  positions,  but  I  confess  in 
this  case  I  do  not  see  two  sides  at  all.  I  do  not 
see  how  any  one  can  hope  that  the  teacher  will 
profit  for  his  teaching  methods  from  these  three 
fields  the  moment  they  are  correctly  defined  and 
are  not  mixed  in  the  usual  melange  with  other 
things.  Where  a  serious  plea  for  them  is  made, 
always  either  the  psychological  fields  are  mis- 
interpreted or  the  teacher  is  substituted  for  the 
science  of  education. 

The  case  of  physiological  psychology  is  the 
simplest  one.  There  was  never  a  teacher  who 
would  have  taught  otherwise,  or  would  have 
changed  his  educational  efforts,  if  the  physiologi- 
cal substratum  of  the  mental  life  had  been  the 
liver  or  the  kidneys  instead  of  the  brain.  We 
have  seen  that  here  psychology  has  nothing  at 
all  to  learn  from  physiology,  and  that  it  is  a 
caricature  of  the  facts  if  you  tell  the  teacher 
that  he  can  learn  anything  new  about  the  men- 
tal life  if  he  knows  by  heart  the  accompanying 


130  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

brain  processes  ;  and  if  the  teacher,  in  the  hope 
of  understanding  the  inner  Hf  e  of  children  better, 
studies  the  ganglion  cells  under  the  microscope, 
he  could  substitute  just  as  well  the  reading  of 
Egyptian  hieroglyphs.  All  talk  about  the  brain 
is,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  teacher,  merely 
cant,  and  I  say  this  frankly  at  the  risk  of  giv- 
ing pleasure  to  those  who  do  not  deserve  it  —  to 
those  who  are  only  too  lazy  to  study  anatomy. 

I  insist  that  the  situation  lies  in  no  way  more 
favorably  for  child  psychology  and  experimental 
psychology.  Both  sciences,  as  we  saw,  have  as 
their  aim  to  be  methods  of  analysis  and  explana- 
tion of  the  normal  psychical  facts.  Child  psy- 
chology reaches  that  goal  by  following  up  the 
development ;  experimental  psychology  reaches  it 
by  introducing  artificial  variations  of  the  outer 
conditions.  Both  have  thus  merely  the  one  pur- 
pose, to  aid  our  looking  on  mental  life  as  if  it 
were  a  combination  of  elements,  a  composition 
of  psychophysical  atoms.  I  know  that  such  a 
transformation  of  the  inner  Hfe  is  extremely  im- 
portant for  many  scientific  purposes,  but  I  am 
convinced,  too,  that  such  an  atomizing  attitude  is 
directly  antagonistic  to  the  attitude  of  the  true 
practical  life,  and  thus  opposed  to  the  natural 
instincts  of  the  teacher  toward  his  pupils.  In 
practical  life  our  friends  come  in  question  for  us 
only  as  units ;  their  mental  life  interests  us  only 
in  so  far  as  it  means  something  to  us  and  ex- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  131 

presses  the  real,  willing  personality.  Decompose 
it  for  loofical  ends  into  its  constructed  elements  of 
atomistic  sensations,  and  their  sum  is  no  longer 
the  inner  life  of  our  friend.  The  naturalistic  de- 
composition into  elements  is  most  valuable  for  its 
purposes,  but  the  purposes  of  life  and  friendship 
and  love  and  education  are  others.  There  is  no 
necessary  competition  between  these  different 
purposes ;  that  which  serves  the  one  is  as  true  as 
that  which  serves  the  other,  because  truth  never 
means  a  mere  repetition  of  the  one  reality,  but  a 
transformation  of  reality  in  the  direction  of  logi- 
cal ends.  The  view  of  man  as  a  free  being,  as 
history  must  see  him,  is  equally  true  with  the 
view  of  man  as  an  unfree  being,  as  psychology 
must  see  him  ;  and  the  friends'  and  educators' 
view  of  the  child  as  the  indissoluble  unit  and 
willful  personality  is  just  as  valuable  and  true  as 
the  psychologist's  view  which  sees  it  as  a  psy- 
chophysical complex  mechanism.  You  destroy 
a  consistent  psychology  if  you  force  on  it  the 
categories  of  practical  life,  but  you  also  destroy 
the  values  of  our  practical  life  if  you  force  on 
them  the  categories  of  psychology.  In  experi- 
mental psychology,  or  in  child  psychology,  the 
emotion  may  show  itself  as  composed  of  circula- 
tory and  muscular  elements,  and  the  will  as  made 
up  from  muscle  and  joint  and  skin  sensations  ; 
but  if  you  offer  such  transformed  product  to  the 
teacher,  you  do  worse  than  if  you  should  offer  to 


132  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

a  thirsty  man  one  balloon  filled  with  hydrogen 
and  another  with  oxygen  instead  of  a  good  swal- 
low of  water.  The  chemist  is  quite  right :  that 
is  water ;  the  fainting  man  insists  that  it  is  not, 
and  life  speaks  always  the  language  of  the  thirsty. 
Do  I  mean  by  all  this  that  the  teacher  ought 
to  be  without  interest  in  the  mental  life  of  the 
children,  a  dull  and  indifferent  creature  without 
sympathy  for  the  individualities  and  desires  and 
characteristics  of  the  pupils?  Just  the  contrary 
is  true.  I  detest  this  mingling  of  the  teacher 
with  psychology  just  because  I  do  not  wish  to 
destroy  in  him  the  powers  of  sound  and  natural 
interest.  It  has  been  my  point  from  the  start 
that  not  every  interest  in  mental  life  is  psycho- 
logy, but  that  psychology  studies  mental  life  from 
a  special  point  of  view.  I  therefore  separated 
child  psychology  sharply  from  other  kinds  of 
interest  in  children's  minds,  and  the  psychologi- 
cal sciences  from  the  historical  and  normative 
sciences.  Certainly  the  teacher  ought  to  study 
children  and  men  in  general,  but  with  the 
strictly  anti-psychological  view ;  he  ought  to  ac- 
knowledge them  as  indissoluble  unities,  as  cen- 
tres of  free  will  the  functions  of  which  are  not 
causally  but  teleologically  connected  by  interests 
and  ideals,  not  by  psychophysical  laws.  The 
study  of  the  mental  life  of  man  from  this  other 
point  of  view  is  not  a  special  science  ;  it  belongs 
partly  to  history  and  literature,  partly  to  logic 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  133 

and  ethics  and  philosophy,  partly  to  poetry  and 
religion.  Here  may  the  teacher  wander  at  his 
ease,  and  he  will  learn  to  understand  man,  while 
psychology  teaches  him  only  to  decompose  man. 
Have  you  never  observed  what  bad  judges  of 
men  in  real  life  the  psychologists  are,  and  what 
excellent  judges  of  men  the  history-makers  and 
historians  are?  Not  a  little  of  this  desirable 
knowledge  about  the  real  inner  man  and  his 
unity  of  intentions  may  be  found  also  in  the  so- 
called  "rational  psychology."  To  be  sure,  in  its 
deductions  it  is  often  too  dependent  upon  met- 
aphysics, and,  above  all,  we  must  not  forget 
that,  strictly  speaking,  it  is  not  psychology  at 
all,  since  it  aims  at  synthesis,  not  at  analysis ; 
but  it  is  full  of  that  which  the  teacher  needs  : 
suggestions  to  intensify  interest  for  the  child's 
mind  by  a  deeper  understanding  of  its  volitional 
relations,  and  by  a  critical  appreciation  of  men- 
tal values  for  the  inner  life.  The  teacher  needs 
interest  in  the  mental  life  from  the  point  of  view 
of  interpretation  and  appreciation;  the  psycho- 
logist, with  his  child  psychology  and  experi- 
mental and  physiological  psychology,  gives  him 
and  must  give  him  only  description  and  expla- 
nation. Pestalozzi  and  Froebel  were  no  psycho- 
logists. 

This  standpoint  does  not  at  all  exclude  the 
existence  of  facts  which  demand  that  the  teacher 
change  his  attitude  and  consider  the  child  from 


134  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

the  naturalistic  atomistic  psychophysical  point  of 
view ;  and  for  this  case  also  the  teacher  ought  to 
be  prepared.  I  have  in  mind  the  facts  related 
to  physical  and  mental  health.  To  be  sure,  the 
questions  of  hygiene,  of  light  and  air  and  re- 
freshment and  fatigue,  of  normal  sense  organs 
and  muscles,  as  well  as  of  normal  mental  func- 
tions, of  pathological  instincts  and  emotions,  ab- 
normal inhibitions  and  mental  diseases,  are  by 
a  hundred  threads  connected  with  the  school- 
room, and  there  is  not  the  slightest  doubt  that 
they  have  to  be  treated  from  the  psychophysical 
point  of  view.  That  is  no  inconsistency ;  these 
facts  belong  indeed  to  an  absolutely  different 
system  of  relations,  which  has  to  be  cared  for, 
but  which  is  not  the  system  of  educational  rela- 
tions. The  word  which  I  am  writing  now  be- 
longs to  the  stream  of  my  thoughts  and  at  the 
same  time  to  the  stream  of  my  fountain  pen  —  I 
have  to  take  care  of  both.  In  the  moment 
when  the  teacher  takes  care  of  the  child's  myo- 
pia or  hysteria  he  is  not  teacher  but  psychophy- 
siological adviser  of  the  child,  just  as  it  is  not 
my  function  as  a  scholar  to  fill  my  fountain  pen. 
Nobody  overlooks  that  it  is  extremely  important 
for  society  that  the  teacher  should  be  well  pre- 
pared to  fulfill  this  naturahstic  function,  too. 
Much  misfortune  could  be  avoided  if  every 
teacher  were  especially  trained  to  recognize 
pathological  distui'bances  of  the  mind  in  their 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   EDUCATION  135 

first  beginnings,  and  for  that  he  would  indeed 
need  some  real  psychology.  Only  do  not  say 
that  he  needs  the  psychology  as  teacher,  while 
he  may  remain  a  good  teacher  in  spite  of  the 
psychology  which  he  studies  in  the  service  of 
hygiene. 

VI 

This  last  discussion  referred  only  to  the  ques- 
tion how  far  psychology  interests  the  individual 
teacher  as  a  help  in  his  efforts,  but  that  was  only 
one  side  of  the  more  general  problem,  how  far 
psychology  can  be  helpful  to  education.  There 
remains  the  other  side  :  how  can  psychology  in- 
fluence education  through  the  mediating  channel 
of  a  scientific  educational  theory;  and  it  is  clear 
that  here  again  the  questions  are  so  independ- 
ent of  each  other  that  a  mixture  of  the  two 
must  result  in  confusion.  We  can  be  convinced 
that  the  view  of  the  teacher  ought  not  to  be 
psychological,  and  we  can  nevertheless  demand 
that  education  as  science  make  the  fullest  pos- 
sible use  of  every  branch  of  psychology.  Ex- 
actly that  has  always  been,  and  is  to-day,  my 
hope. 

To  be  sure,  the  impression  which  theories  of 
education  make  in  our  day  is  in  no  way  over- 
whelming. The  demand  for  educational  wisdom 
is  decidedly  greater  than  the  supply,  and  neither 
great  systems  nor  imposing  thoughts  character* 


136  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

ize  the  pedagogy  of  our  age.  The  whole  edu- 
cational trade  does  its  business  to-day  with  small 
coin.  Our  time  needs  a  man  like  Herbart  again. 
But  at  least  one  very  favorable  condition  for  the 
strong  development  of  education  is  given  :  the 
widespread  conviction  that  we  need  it.  No  pre- 
vious time  has  so  seriously  called  for  a  special- 
istic  help  from  scientific  education,  and  if,  for 
want  of  revolutionizing  great  thoughts,  we  de- 
mand anything  from  it,  then  we  demand  that  it 
shall  carefully  make  use  of  the  whole  empirical 
knowledge  of  our  time  to  transform  it  into  sug- 
gestions for  the  teacher.  A  responsible  admin- 
istration will  then  further  transform  these  sug- 
gestions into  obligatory  prescriptions.  Among 
this  empirical  knowledge  which  education  unites 
into  a  new  practical  synthesis  psychology  cer- 
tainly plays  one  of  the  most  important  roles  in 
determining  the  means  by  which  the  educational 
ends  can  be  worked  out.  There  is  no  reason  to 
confine  this  to  a  special  branch  of  psychology ; 
all  that  the  analytical  study  of  mind  offers  by 
experimental  or  physiological  methods,  by  self- 
observation  or  by  statistics,  by  child  psychology 
or  by  pathology,  by  "  old  "  or  by  "  new  "  means, 
in  short,  the  best  and  fullest  psychology  of  the 
time  has  to  be  one  of  the  tools  in  the  workshop 
of  education.  The  educational  scholar  differs  in 
two  essential  respects  clearly  from  the  individual 
teacher.     First,  while  the  teacher's  practical  atti- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  137 

tude  must  suffer,  as  we  saw,  by  the  influence  of 
the  antagonistic  psychological  attitude  in  the 
same  consciousness,  the  theoretical  scholar,  who 
is  not  himself  a  teacher,  can  of  course  easily  com- 
bine the  two  attitudes  and  alternate  between 
them.  The  teacher  must  live  fully  in  the  one 
attitude,  and  every  opposite  impulse  inhibits 
him ;  the  student  of  education  remains  in  a 
theoretical  relation  to  each  of  them,  and  can 
therefore  easily  link  them.  He  can  take  the 
whole  wisdom  of  psychology  and  physiology  and 
remold  it  into  suggestions  for  the  practical 
teaching  attitude.  The  teacher  ought  thus  to 
receive  finally,  indeed,  the  influence  of  psycho- 
logy, but  only  if  the  causal  facts  are  transformed 
by  some  one  else  beforehand  into  teleological 
connections,  adapted  to  the  teacher's  unpsycho- 
logical  work.  The  bread  which  the  teacher 
bakes  for  his  classes  comes  indeed  partly  from 
the  wheat  on  psychological  fields,  but  the  corn 
must  be  ground  beforehand  in  the  educational 
mills.  And  the  second  point  is  not  less  im- 
portant :  such  transformation  of  psychological 
investigations  into  ideas  how  to  teach  may  suc- 
cessfully be  done  by  the  steady  cooperation  of  a 
large  number  of  speciaUsts  who  make  a  whole 
lifework  of  it,  but  absolutely  never  by  a  single 
teacher.  He  may  run  through  laboratories  and 
digest  statistical  tables;  he  may  commit  to  mem- 
ory the   numberless   papers   of   the   periodicals 


138  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

and  feast  on  microscopical  ganglion  cells,  but 
nowhere  will  he  find  anything  which  suggests 
really  a  whole  plan  or  a  straight  impulse.  A 
thousand  little  odds  and  ends  without  the  sligrht- 
est  unity  will  be  in  his  hand,  and  if  he  really 
believes  himself  to  have  the  material  for  a  little 
prescription,  then  he  probably  does  not  see  how 
directly  it  contradicts  other  indications.  It  is 
impossible  for  him  to  survey  the  whole  field,  and 
nobody  can  ask  him  to  do  privately,  by  the  way, 
a  work  which  would  give  sufficient  occupation  to 
a  whole  generation.  Even  the  slightest  progress 
in  the  field  presupposes  a  full  acquaintance  with 
the  whole  literature  of  the  special  subject.  We 
cannot  demand  that  from  the  much-burdened 
practical  teacher,  even  for  any  one  problem ; 
how  absurd  to  hope  it  for  all  those  which  he 
practically  needs  :  for  memory  and  attention,  for 
imagination  and  intellect,  for  emotion  and  will, 
for  fatigue  and  play,  and  a  hundred  other  im- 
portant functions.  Do  we  not  lay  a  special  Hnk- 
ing  science  everywhere  else  between  the  theory 
and  practical  work  ?  We  have  engineering  be- 
tween physics  and  the  practical  workingmen  in 
the  mills ;  we  have  a  scientific  medicine  between 
the  natural  sciences  and  the  physician.  If  a 
man  prepared  with  the  most  wonderful  know- 
ledge of  the  anatomy,  physiology,  pathology, 
and  chemistry  of  the  century  should  begin  med- 
ical  practice   and   write    prescriptions    without 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   EDUCATION  139 

having-  passed  through  a  training  in  real  medicine, 
he  would  be  either  the  wildest  quack,  curing 
one  organ  at  the  expense  of  a  dozen  others,  or 
he  would  throw  away  his  theoretical  wisdom 
and  follow  his  practical  instincts.  The  ten  thou- 
sand little  laboratory  experiments  he  knows 
would  only  confuse  him  if  a  whole  generation  of 
medical  men  had  not,  in  specialistic  cooperation, 
worked  them  up  for  practical  use.  Only,  two 
points  such  a  theory  of  education  must  not 
overlook. 

On  the  one  hand,  education  forgets  too  easily 
that  such  psychophysical  material  is  only  a  part 
of  the  stuff  to  be  mixed  and  filtered  and  brought 
into  solution  before  educational  principles  are 
crystallized.  The  causal  analysis  of  the  psycho- 
physical variations  and  possibilities  must  at  every 
point  be  combined  with  the  teleological  inter- 
pretation of  the  ends  suggested  by  ethics  and 
aesthetics,  by  history  and  religion.  It  is  not 
enough  to  substitute  for  a  serious  study  and 
examination  of  the  latter  half  a  mere  personal 
taste  and  capricious  instinct,  which  takes  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  which  ought  to  be  scienti- 
fically criticised.  Carelessness  in  the  teleological 
part  makes  the  synthesis  just  as  dilettantic  and 
useless  as  ignorance  about  the  causal  material. 
Nothing  ought  there  to  be  taken  for  granted. 
Take  one  simple  illustration  instead  of  a  thou- 
sand.    The  statistics  show  a  very  poor  knowledge 


140  PSYCHOLOGY  AND   EDUCATION 

of  the  natural  objects  of  the  country  on  the 
part  of  the  youngest  school  children.  The  in- 
vestigator draws  the  educational  conclusion  that 
preparation  in  that  respect  must  be  improved. 
But  who  gives  us  a  scientific  right  to  take  for 
granted  that  early  acquaintance  with  natural 
objects  is  at  all  desirable?  Socrates  did  not 
think  so;  not  the  stones  but  only  men  can  teach 
us.  The  best  education  is  certainly  not  that 
which  gives  a  little  bit  of  everything.  We  must 
develop  some  and  must  inhibit  other  psycholo- 
gical possibilities;  psychology  as  such  cannot 
decide  on  that.  Only  when  education  succeeds 
really  in  amalgamizing  the  two  sides,  and  be- 
comes something  else  than  merely  picked-out 
psychology,  can  we  tell  the  teacher  that  he  will 
find  that  study  of  man  which  he  desires  not 
only  in  philosophy  and  history  and  literature, 
but  also  in  the  handbooks  and  seminaries  of 
education. 

But  education  must  appreciate  a  second  point 
also.  It  cannot  expect  to  find  all  necessary  psy- 
chological and  physiological  information  always 
ready-made.  As  no  science  is  merely  a  collec- 
tion of  scraps,  psychology  as  such  cannot  ex- 
amine every  possible  psychological  fact  in  the 
universe,  but  must  select  just  those  which  are 
essential  for  the  understanding  of  the  psychical 
elements  and  laws.  This  choice  in  the  interest 
of  psychology  differs  of  course  fully  from  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  141 

choice  of  psychical  facts  which  education  would 
make  for  its  own  purposes.  Here  the  science  of 
education  must  take  the  matter  in  its  own  hand 
and  must  work  up,  with  aU  the  subtle  means 
and  methods  of  modern  psychology,  those  psy- 
chological phenomena  which  are  important  for 
the  special  problems ;  the  most  intimate  relation 
to  psychological  laboratories  is  here  a  matter 
of  course.  In  what  form  education  will  fulfill 
this  demand  may  itself  be  at  first  a  matter  of 
educational  experiment.  Some  believe  in  spe- 
cial psycho-educational  experimental  laborato- 
ries, some  believe  in  special  experimental  schools, 
and  recently  the  proposition  was  made  for  the 
appointment  of  special  school  psychologists  at- 
tached to  the  superintendent's  office  in  large 
cities.  In  any  case  the  work  has  to  be  done ; 
the  psychologist  as  such  cannot  do  it,  and  the 
teacher  cannot  do  it,  either.  For  the  psycho- 
logist it  would  be  a  burden,  for  the  teacher  it 
would  be  a  most  serious  danger ;  the  student 
of  education  alone  can  do  it.  Of  course  even 
these  adjuncts  of  superintendents,  and  these  prin- 
cipals of  experimental  schools,  must  never  forget 
that  their  work  always  refers  only  to  the  one 
half,  which  is  misleading  without  the  other  half 
—  to  the  causal  system,  which  must  be  harmon- 
ized with  the  teleological  one. 

Personally  I  consider  the  psycho-educational 
laboratory  as   the   most   natural   step   forward. 


142  PSYCHOLOGY  AND   EDUCATION 

Such  laboratories  would  be  psychophysical  labo- 
ratories, in  which  the  problems  are  selected  and 
adjusted  from  the  standpoint  of  educational 
interest.  All  that  has  been  done  so  far  in  our 
psychological  laboratories  for  the  study  of  atten- 
tion, memory,  apperception,  imagination,  and  so 
on,  in  spite  of  seductive  titles,  has  almost  never 
had  anything  to  do  with  that  part  of  these  func- 
tions which  is  essential  for  the  mental  activities 
of  the  classroom.  While  the  individual  teacher, 
as  we  have  seen,  ought  to  keep  away  from  our 
psychological  laboratories  because  our  attitude 
is  opposed  to  his,  the  student  of  education  ought 
to  keep  away  from  us  because,  in  spite  of  the 
same  attitude,  we  have  too  seldom  problems 
belonging  to  his  field.  It  is  a  waste  of  energy 
to  hunt  up  our  chronoscope  tables  and  kymo- 
graph records  for  Uttle  bits  of  educational  in- 
formation which  the  psychologist  has  brought 
forward  by  chance ;  sciences  cannot  live  from 
the  chances  of  work  which  is  intended  for 
other  purposes.  When  in  the  quiet  experimental 
working  place  of  the  psycho-educational  scholar, 
through  the  steady  cooperation  of  specialists,  a 
real  system  of  acknowledged  facts  is  secured, 
then  the  practical  attempts  of  the  consulting 
school  psychologist  and  of  the  leader  of  experi- 
mental classrooms  have  a  safer  basis,  and  their 
work  in  its  turn  will  help  the  theoretical  scholar 
till  the  cooperation  of  all  these  agents  produces 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION  143 

a  practical  education  which  the  teacher  will 
accept  without  experimenting  himself.  Then 
the  teacher  may  learn  psychology,  to  understand 
afterward  theoretically  the  educational  theory  he 
is  trained  in,  but  he  himself  has  not  to  make 
educational  theory  nor  to  struggle  with  psycho- 
logical experiments. 

There  need  be  no  fear  that  such  psycho-educa- 
tional laboratories  would  have  too  few  problems 
at  their  disposal ;  a  fear  which  may  be  suggested 
by  the  fact  that  the  friends  of  this  movement 
always  refer  to  the  same  few  show  pieces,  the 
experiments  on  fatigue,  on  memory,  and  on  asso- 
ciation. The  situation  would  develop  just  as 
twenty-five  years  ago  did  that  of  experimental 
psychology,  which  itself  Hved  at  first  only  from 
the  crumbs  that  fell  from  the  table  of  other  sci- 
ences —  physics  and  physiology.  It  also  began 
with  only  a  few  chance  questions,  with  the 
threshold  of  sensations  and  reaction  times ;  but 
since  it  has  wrought  in  its  own  workshops,  for 
its  own  points  of  view  and  interests,  it  has  con- 
quered the  whole  realm  of  psychology.  In  the 
same  way  psycho-educational  experiments  will 
extend  the  work  to  all  the  functions  active  in 
education.  Such  new  studies  will  then  show 
how  incomplete  an  essay  like  this  is,  and  how 
many  other  relations  still  exist  between  the  child 
and  the  study  of  mental  life.  But  even  this 
incomplete  enumeration  is  sufficient  to  show  at 


144  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  EDUCATION 

least  one  thing:  the  question  whether  there  is 
a  connection  between  psychology  and  education 
cannot  be  answered  simply  with  yes  or  no,  but 
must  be  answered  by  firstly,  secondly,  thirdly, 
fourthly  —  I  do  not  discuss  whether  we  can  ever 
say  also :  lastly. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 


Common  sense,  which  is  to-day,  as  it  has  been 
since  eternity,  merely  the  trivialized  edition  of 
the  scientific  results  of  the  day  before  yesterday, 
is  just  now  on  the  psychological  track.  The 
scientists  felt  some  years  ago  that  the  psycholo- 
gical aspect  of  the  products  of  civilization  was 
too  much  neglected,  and  that  the  theoretical 
problem  how  to  bring  the  creations  of  social  life 
under  the  categories  of  psychology  might  find 
some  new  and  interesting  answers  in  these  days 
of  biological,  physiological,  experimental,  and 
pathological  psychology.  Thus  the  scientific 
study  of  the  psychology  of  society  and  its  func- 
tions has  made  admirable  progress.  Science,  of 
course,  took  this  only  as  a  special  phase  of  the 
matter ;  it  did  not  claim  to  express  the  reality  of 
language  and  history,  law  and  religion,  econom- 
ics and  technics,  in  describing  and  explaining 
them  as  psychological  facts.  Therefore  science 
did  not  foro-et  the  more  essential  truth  that 
civilization  belongs  to  a  world  of  purposes  and 
duties   and   ideals;   at  present,  indeed,  science 


146  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

emphasizes  decidedly  this  latter  view,  and  has 
changed  the  direction  of  its  advance.  Common 
sense,  as  usual,  has  not  yet  perceived  this 
change  of  course.  Ten  years  may  pass  before 
it  finds  it  out.  Above  all,  one-sided  as  ever, 
common  sense  has  misunderstood  the  word  of 
command,  as  if  the  psychological  aspect  must 
be  taken  as  the  only  possible  aspect,  and  as  if 
psychology  could  reach  the  reality.  Therefore 
common  sense  marches  on,  still  waving  the  flag 
of  psychology,  and  with  it  its  regular  drum 
corps,  the  philistines. 

This  pseudo-philosophical  movement,  which 
takes  the  standpoint  of  the  psychologist  wrongly 
as  a  philosophical  view-point  of  the  whole  inner 
world,  has  found  perhaps  nowhere  else  so  little 
organized  resistance  as  in  the  realm  of  art ;  for 
the  real  artist  does  not  care  much  about  the 
right  or  wrong  theory.  For  the  same  reason, 
indeed,  it  may  seem  that  just  here  the  influence 
of  a  warped  theory  must  be  very  indifferent 
and  harmless.  A  one-sided  theory  of  crime  may 
mislead  the  judge,  who  necessarily  works  with 
abstract  theoretical  conceptions  ;  but  a  one-sided 
psychological  theory  of  art  cannot  do  such  harm, 
as  the  artist  relies  in  any  case  on  the  wings  of 
his  imagination,  and  mistrusts  the  crutches  of 
theories.  This  would  certainly  be  the  case  if 
there  did  not  exist  three  other  channels  through 
which  the  wise  and  the  unwise  wisdom  can  influ- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  147 

ence,  strengthen,  and  inhibit  the  creative  power 
of  art. 

The  market  influence  is  one  way;  that  is  a 
sad  story,  but  it  is  not  the  most  important  fac- 
tor, as  the  tragedy  of  the  market  depends  much 
more  upon  practical  vulgarity  than  upon  theo- 
retical mistakes.  iEsthetical  criticism  is  another 
way ;  but  even  that  is  not  the  most  dangerous, 
as  it  speaks  to  men  who  ought  to  be  able  to 
judge  for  themselves,  although  nobody  doubts 
that  they  do  not  do  so.  The  most  important  of 
the  three,  however,  is  art  education  in  the 
schoolroom.  Millions  of  children  receive  there 
the  influence  that  is  strongest  in  determining 
their  sesthetical  attitude ;  millions  of  children 
have  there  the  most  immediate  contact  with  the 
world  of  the  visible  arts,  and  mould  there  the 
sense  of  refinement,  of  beauty,  of  harmony. 
Surely  the  drawing-teacher  can  have  an  incom- 
parable influence  on  the  aesthetic  spirit  of  the 
country,  —  far  greater  than  critics  and  million- 
aire purchasers,  greater  even  than  the  profes- 
sional art  schools.  The  future  battles  against 
this  country's  greatest  enemy,  vulgarity,  will  be 
fought  largely  with  the  weapons  which  the  draw- 
ing-teachers supply  to  the  masses.  Whoever  has 
attended  their  meetings  or  examined  the  exhibi- 
tions of  schoolroom  work  knows  that  they  do 
not  lack  enthusiasm  and  industry,  and  that  their 
importance  in  the  educational  system  is  growing 


148  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

rapidly.  But  they  are  primary  teachers,  and 
primary  teachers  are  men  who  adore  nothing 
more  than  recently  patented  theories  which  ap- 
peal to  common  sense ;  to-day  they  really  feast 
on  psychology.  The  greater  the  influence,  the 
more  dangerous  is  every  wrong  step  on  the  the- 
oretical hne,  the  more  necessary  a  sober  inquiry 
as  to  how  far  all  this  talk  about  psychology  and 
art  really  covers  the  ground. 

We  thus  raise  the  question,  what  psychology 
and  art  have  to  do  with  each  other,  in  its  most 
general  form,  at  first  without  any  relation  to 
the  practical  problems.  If  we  acknowledge  the 
question  in  such  an  unlimited  form,  we  cannot 
avoid  asking,  as  a  preamble  to  the  discussion, 
whether  the  work  of  art  cannot  be  itself  a  man- 
ual of  psychology ;  whether,  especially,  the  poet 
ought  not  to  teach  us  psychology.  We  all  have 
heard  often  that  Shakespeare  and  Byron,  Mere- 
dith and  Kipling,  are  better  psychologists  than 
any  scholar  on  the  academic  platform,  or  that 
Henry  James  has  written  even  more  volumes  on 
psychology  than  his  brother  William.  That  is 
a  misunderstanding.  The  poet,  so  far  as  he 
works  with  poetic  tools,  is  never  a  psychologist ; 
if  modern  novelists  of  a  special  type  sometimes 
introduce  psychological  analysis,  they  make  use 
of  means  which  do  not  belong  to  pure  art ;  it  is 
a  mixed  style  which  characterizes  decadence. 

It  is  true  that  discussion  would  be  meaning- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  149 

less  if  we  were  ready  to  call  every  utterance 
which  has  to  do  with  mental  life  psychology. 
Psychology  does  not  demand  abstract  scientific 
forms ;  it  may  be  offered  in  literary  forms,  yet 
it  means  always  a  special  kind  of  treatment  of 
mental  life.  It  tries  to  describe  and  to  explain 
mental  life  as  a  combination  of  elements.  The 
dissolution  of  the  unity  of  consciousness  into 
elementary  processes  characterizes  psychology, 
just  as  natural  science  demands  the  dissection 
of  physical  objects ;  the  appreciation  of  a  physi- 
cal object  as  a  whole  is  never  natural  science, 
and  the  interpretation  and  suggestion  of  a  men- 
tal state  as  a  whole  is  never  psychology.  The 
poet,  as  well  as  the  historian  and  the  man  of 
practical  life,  has  this  interpretation  of  the  whole 
as  his  aim ;  the  psychologist  goes  exactly  the 
opposite  way.  They  ask  about  the  meaning, 
the  psychologist  about  the  constitution  ;  and  the 
psychological  elements  concern  the  poet  as  little 
as  the  microscopical  cells  of  the  tree  interest  the 
landscape  painter.  The  tree  in  the  painting 
ought,  indeed,  to  be  botanically  correct ;  it 
ought  not  to  appear  contradictory  to  the  results 
of  the  botanist's  observations,  but  these  results 
themselves  need  not  appear  in  the  painting.  In 
the  same  way,  we  demand  that  the  poet  create 
men  who  are  psychologically  correct,  —  at  least 
in  those  cases  in  which  higher  aesthetical  laws 
do  not  demand  the  psychological  impossibilities 


150  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

of  fairyland,  which  are  allowed  like  the  botani- 
cal impossibilities  of  conventionalized  flowers  or 
the  anatomical  impossibilities  of  human  figures 
with  wings.  We  detest  the  psychologically 
absurd  creations  of  the  stage  villain  and  the 
stage  hero  in  third-class  melodrama,  the  psy- 
chological marionettes  of  newspaper  novels,  and 
the  frequent  cases  of  insanity  in  poor  fiction, 
for  which  the  schooled  psychologist  would  make 
at  once  the  diagnosis  that  there  must  be  simula- 
tion in  them,  as  the  insane  never  act  so.  We 
demand  this  psychological  correctness,  and  the 
great  poet  instinctively  satisfies  it  so  fully  that 
the  psychologist  may  acknowledge  the  creations 
of  poetry  as  substitutional  material  for  the  psy- 
chical study  of  the  living  man.  The  psycholo- 
gist believes  the  poet,  and  studies  jealousy  from 
Othello,  and  love  from  Romeo,  and  neurasthenia 
from  Hamlet,  and  political  emotions  from  Caesar ; 
but  the  creation  of  such  lifelike  men  is  in  itself 
in  no  way  psychology. 

The  poet  creates  mental  life  in  suggesting  it 
to  the  soul  of  the  reader ;  only  the  man  who 
decomposes  it  afterward  is  a  psychologist.  The 
poet  works  as  life  works ;  the  child  who  smiles 
and  weeps  causes  us  to  think  of  pleasure  and 
pain  too,  but  it  offers  us  no  psychological  under- 
standing of  pleasure  and  pain.  Just  so  the  poet 
smiles  and  weeps,  and  if  he  is  a  great  artist,  with 
strong  suggestive  power,  he  forces  our  minds  to 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  161 

feel  with  him,  while  we  have  only  an  intellectual 
interest  if  he  merely  analyzes  the  emotions  and 
gives  us  a  handful  of  elements  determined  by 
abstract  psychological  conceptions.  Popular  lan- 
guage calls  a  poet  a  good  psychologist  if  he  cre- 
ates men  who  offer  manifold  material  for  the 
analysis  of  the  psychologist ;  when  the  poet 
begins  to  make  that  analysis  himself,  and  to  ex- 
plain with  the  categories  of  physiological  psy- 
chology why  the  hero  became  a  dreamer,  and 
the  dreamer  a  hero,  and  the  saint  a  sinner,  he 
will  hinder  his  scientific  effort  by  the  desire  to 
be  a  poet,  and  will  weaken  his  poetry  by  his 
instructive  side  show.  Meredith  and  Bourffet 
do  it,  Ibsen  never.  Poetry  and  psychology  are 
different,  not  because  they  speak  a  different 
language,  but  because  they  take  an  absolutely 
different  attitude  toward  the  mental  life ;  the 
wisdom  of  the  poet  about  the  human  soul  does 
not  belong  to  a  handbook  of  psychology.  For 
music  and  the  visible  arts  the  whole  question 
is  non-existent,  or  at  least  ought  not  to  exist. 
A  side  branch  of  it,  nevertheless,  continues  to 
grow  in  the  old  discussion  whether  music  ought 
to  "  describe "  the  human  feelings.  The  con- 
fusion about  the  logical  meaning  of  description 
here  lies  more  on  the  surface ;  theoretically  the 
case  is  the  same  as  in  poetry.  The  composer 
describes  the  emotions  as  little  as  the  poet  does ; 
tones  and  verses  suggest  the  feelings,  while  it  is 


152  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

an  unmusical,  unpoetical  business  to  psycholo- 
gize about  them ;  but  just  that  is  our  aim,  if  we 
consider  the  preamble  as  closed,  and  ask  once 
more  what  art  has  to  do  with  psychology. 

II 

We  have  seen  so  far  that  art  is  not  by  itself 
psychology ;  the  remaining  question,  in  which 
all  centres,  is,  then,  how  far  art  can  become  an 
object  of  psychology.  The  situation  is  simple. 
Psychology  is  the  science  which  describes  and 
explains  the  mental  processes.  A  physical  thing 
or  process,  even  a  brain  action,  is  never,  there- 
fore, an  immediate  object  of  psychology.  Every 
work  of  art  —  the  pencil  drawing  and  the  writ- 
ten poem,  the  played  melody  and  the  sculptured 
statue  —  exists  as  a  physical  thing  ;  hence  the 
work  of  art  itself  is  never  an  object  of  psycho- 
logy, and  the  description  of  it  lies  outside  of  the 
psychologist's  province.  The  physicist  describes 
the  tone  waves  of  a  melody ;  the  geometrician 
describes  the  lines  and  curves  and  angles  of  a 
drawing.  The  physical  object  is  in  contact  with 
the  human  mind  at  two  points :  at  its  start  and 
its  goal.  Every  work  of  art  springs  from  the 
mind  of  the  artist,  and  reaches  the  mind  of  the 
public ;  its  origin  and  its  effect  are  both  psychi- 
cal processes,  and  both  are  material  for  the  de- 
scription and  explanation  of  the  psychologist. 
Two  groups  of  psychological  problems  are  thus 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  153 

offered,  —  two  points  of  view  for  the  psycholo- 
gical study  of  art ;  a  third  one  cannot  exist. 
The  one  asks,  By  what  psychological  processes 
does  the  mind  create  art  ?  The  other  asks,  By 
what  psychological  processes  does  the  mind  en- 
joy art  ? 

Modern  psychology  has  attained  to  its  rapid 
progress  of  late  years  through  the  wonderful 
development  of  its  methods ;  it  believes  no 
longer  that  one  way  alone  will  bring  us  to  the 
goal ;  we  have  to  adapt  the  methods  to  the  pro- 
blem. It  is  quite  clear  that  these  two  aesthetical 
psychological  problems  demand  different  meth- 
ods. The  question  how  the  artist  creates  art 
lies  beyond  the  self-observation  of  the  psycholo- 
gist ;  he  must  go  back  to  the  past.  The  ques- 
tion how  the  work  of  art  influences  the  enjoying 
spectator  can  be  studied  by  an  analysis  of  his 
own  aesthetical  emotions.  In  the  interest  o£ 
this  self  -  observing  analysis  he  may  introduce 
experimental  methods,  but  he  cannot  make  ex- 
periments with  the  artistic  production.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  artistic  creative  functions  may 
easily  be  traced  down  toward  the  art  of  the  child, 
of  the  primitive  races,  even  of  the  animals.  And 
so  the  first  group  of  investigations  makes  use 
chiefly  of  the  sociological,  biological,  and  his- 
torical methods  of  psychology  ;  the  second  group 
favors  experimental  methods.  The  larger  ma- 
terial is  at  the  disposal  of  the  first  group ;   the 


154  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

more  exact  treatment  characterizes  the  second. 
We  cannot  sketch  the  results  here  even  in  the 
most  superficial  outlines ;  we  can  recall  only  the 
most  general  directions  which  these  studies  have 
taken. 

First,  the  psychology  of  the  art-creating  pro- 
cess. The  aesthetical  psychologist,  in  our  days 
of  Darwinism,  goes  back  to  the  play  of  animals. 
Biologically  this  is  easily  understood ;  the  fre- 
quent playful  contests  are  a  most  valuable  train- 
ing for  action,  —  as  necessary,  therefore,  for  the 
organism  in  the  struggle  for  existence  as  is  any 
other  function  of  the  nervous  system,  and  yet 
they  contain  the  most  important  elements  of 
BBsthetic  creation  :  they  are  actions  which  are 
useless  for  the  present  state  of  the  organism, 
carried  out  for  enjoyment  only.  Social  psy- 
chology finds  the  more  complicated  forms  of  the 
same  impulses  in  the  life  of  savages.  We  see 
how  the  primitive  races  accompany  their  work 
by  rhythmical  songs,  how  their  dances  stir  up 
lyrical  poetry,  how  their  tools  and  vessels  and 
weapons  and  huts  become  decorated,  how  art 
springs  from  the  religious  and  social  and  tech- 
nical life.  The  psychologist  links  these  first 
traces  of  art  with  the  productions  of  civilized 
peoples.  His  interest  is  not  that  of  the  philo- 
logical historian  ;  he  does  not  care  for  the  single 
work  of  art  as  the  unique  occurrence ;  no,  he 
looks  for  the  psychological  laws  which  under  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   ART  155 

varying  circumstances  produce  just  the  given 
works  of  poetry  and  sculpture,  of  music  and 
architecture  and  painting.  We  learn  to  under- 
stand how  climate  and  poKtical  conditions,  tech- 
nical, material,  and  social  institutions,  models 
and  surrounding  nature,  brought  it  about  that 
Egypt  and  China  and  India,  or  Greece  and  Italy 
and  Germany,  had  just  their  own  development 
of  artistic  production.  Art  becomes  thus  an 
element  of  the  social  consciousness,  together 
with  law  and  religion,  science  and  politics ;  but 
art  is  psychologically  still  more  interesting  than 
any  other  function  of  the  national  soul,  because 
it  is  less  necessary  for  the  biological  existence 
than  any  other  production  of  man.  Art  is  there- 
fore freer,  follows  more  easily  every  pressure 
and  tension,  every  inner  tendency  and  outer 
opportunity ;  it  can  fully  disappear  even  in  the 
strongest  social  organism,  and  can  break  out  in 
fullest  glory  even  in  the  weakest  sociological 
body.  It  is  in  its  incomparable  manifoldness 
and  easiness  of  adaptation  that  art  shows  best 
how  the  mental  products  of  man  are  dependent 
upon  the  totality  of  variable  conditions. 

While  such  a  sociological  view  contrasts  dif- 
ferent periods  and  nations,  psychology  does  not 
overlook  the  differences  among  individuals.  The 
general  artistic  level  of  the  whole  social  mind 
is  only  one  side  of  the  problem ;  the  varia- 
tion of  individuals  above  and  below  this  level, 


166  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  ART 

from  the  anti-gesthetic  philistine  to  the  greatest 
genius,  is  the  other  side,  and  here  also  the  de- 
pendence upon  the  most  diverse  conditions  at- 
tracts interest.  The  psychologist  consults  bio- 
graphy, especially  the  autobiographies  of  poets 
and  painters,  and  follows  up  most  carefully  the 
subtle  influences  which  fertilized  the  imagina- 
tion and  gave  abnormal  direction  to  the  person- 
ality. 

Studying  thus  the  artistic  production  in  indi- 
viduals at  all  times  and  at  all  places,  psychology 
finally  abstracts  a  general  understanding  of  the 
creative  process  and  its  conditions.  There  ap- 
pears nothing  mysterious  in  it :  by  manifold 
threads  it  seems  connected  with  the  mental  func- 
tions of  simple  attention,  with  inhibition  and 
suggestion ;  in  other  directions  with  dreams  and 
illusions,  and  also  with  the  abnormal  functions 
of  hypnotism  and  insanity.  It  is  a  most  com- 
plex process,  truly,  in  which  the  whole  personal- 
ity is  engaged,  but  it  is  connected  by  short  steps 
with  so  much  simpler  events  in  mental  life,  and 
it  can  so  easily  be  traced  back  to  the  artistic  ele- 
ments in  the  child,  that  the  psychologist  has  no 
reason  to  despair ;  the  artistic  function  of  the 
brain  is  not  beyond  the  causal  understanding. 
The  machinery  of  modern  psychological  concep- 
tions, the  atomistic  sensations  and  their  laws  of 
association  and  inhibition,  can  theoretically  ex- 
plain  it   in   its   entirety   from   the   schoolboy's 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   ART  157 

drawing  of  profiles  on  his  blotting-paper  up  to 
Michael  Angelo's  decoration  of  the  dome  of  St. 
Peter's  with  immortal  religious  frescoes. 

Ill 

Very  different  indeed  are  the  methods  by 
■which  we  investigate  our  second  group  of  sesthet- 
ical  problems,  the  psychological  effect  of  the 
beautiful  object.  Experimental  psychology  en- 
ters here  into  its  riofhts.  When  the  students  of 
mental  Hf e,  twenty  years  ago,  took  up  the  exact 
method  of  natural  science  and  worked  out  ex- 
perimental schemes  for  the  most  refined  analysis 
of  psychical  processes,  it  seemed  at  first  a  matter 
of  course  that  only  the  intellectual  processes, 
especially  the  functions  of  perception,  and  per- 
haps the  elementary  activities,  would  offer  them- 
selves to  such  inquiries.  But  slowly  the  new 
method  has  reached  and  conquered  one  field 
after  another,  —  memory  and  imagination,  asso- 
ciation and  apperception,  feeling  and  emotion, 
undeveloped  and  abnormal  mental  states ;  and 
now,  in  different  places,  experimental  work  is 
dealing  with  the  most  delicate  psychical  fact,  the 
sesthetical  feeling  and  its  conditions. 

Fechner  gave  a  strong  impulse  to  such  an  ex- 
perimental study  of  aesthetic  elements  a  long 
time  ago.  He  asked  systematically  a  large  num- 
ber of  persons  which  one  of  a  set  of  rectangles, 
for  instance,  each  of  them  preferred ;    the  ten 


158  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

forms  varied  from  a  square  to  a  rectangle  with  a 
length  of  five  and  a  breadth  of  two  inches.  He 
found  a  marked  aesthetical  preference  for  those 
forms  which  are  determined  by  the  golden  sec- 
tion ;  that  is,  in  which  the  short  side  stands  to 
the  long  side  as  the  latter  stands  to  the  sum  of 
both.  To-day  the  work  transcends  in  every  di- 
rection such  elementary  beginnings.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  not  confined  to  a  special  art.  Music 
and  poetry  share  equally  with  the  visible  arts. 
The  aesthetical  harmony  and  discord  of  tones, 
their  relation  to  beats  and  overtones,  to  the 
fusion  and  the  discrimination  of  tones,  to  timbre 
and  duration ;  in  the  same  way,  the  musical 
properties  of  rhythm,  its  relations  to  the  atten- 
tion and  time  sense,  to  the  physiological  pro- 
cesses of  breathing  and  muscle  tension,  and  to 
many  other  psychophysical  functions,  —  all  these 
have  become  the  problems  of  the  experimental 
psychologist.  These  studies  of  musical  rhythm 
naturally  turn  the  attention  toward  the  elements 
of  poetry ;  the  experimental  study  of  rhythm  in 
the  verse,  and  its  relation  to  the  position  of  the 
rhyme,  to  the  length  of  the  stanza,  to  the  fluc- 
tuations of  apperception,  to  the  physiological 
functions,  and  so  forth,  is  exceedingly  promising, 
although  still  in  its  beginning. 

Much  more  developed  is  the  attempt  to  reach 
experimentally  the  characteristics  of  the  visible 
arts.     Material  and  form,  above  all  color  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  159 

shape,  offer  themselves  in  an  unlimited  series  of 
problems.  The  color  spectrum  has  always  been 
at  home  in  the  laboratory,  but  the  psychologist 
has  studied  color  as  an  element  of  perception  or 
as  a  function  of  the  eye,  not  as  the  object  of 
sesthetical  feeling.  His  studies  now  take  a  new 
direction  and  ask  which  of  two  colors  is  preferred. 
How  does  this  preference  depend  upon  saturation, 
brightness,  extension  ?  What  combination  of 
colors  is  agreeable  :  how  does  this  effect  depend 
upon  the  relative  extension  of  the  colored  sur- 
face; how  upon  the  colored  materials  and  the 
relation  between  their  intensity  or  their  white- 
ness ?  Which  shapes  and  angles  and  sections  are 
preferred :  how  does  this  preference  depend  upon 
associations,  or  upon  our  bodily  position,  or  upon 
eye  movements  ?  How  does  the  plastic  effect, 
in  stereoscopic  vision  for  example,  influence  the 
intensity  of  aesthetic  feeling;  how  does  move- 
ment influence  it,  or  the  combination  of  shape 
with  color  ?  In  a  series  of  rectangles  or  ellipses 
or  bisected  lines,  is  only  one  of  them  agreeable, 
or  has  the  curve  of  our  sesthetical  pleasure  sev- 
eral maximal  points  ? 

The  experimental  investigation  may  come 
much  nearer  still  to  the  problem  of  fine  arts.  I 
take  as  illustration  a  series  of  experiments  which 
make  up  part  of  a  recent  thesis  from  the  Har- 
vard laboratory.  The  problem  is  the  pleasing 
balance  of  two  sides  of  an  aesthetic  object.    That 


160  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

is,  of  course,  realized  in  the  simplest  way  by  geo- 
metrical symmetry  as  many  works  of  architec- 
ture show  it;  we  have  this  pleasing  feeling  of 
equilibrium,  also,  when  we  see  a  well-composed 
building  of  which  the  two  halves  are  far  from 
identical,  and  every  painting  shows  this  ideal 
symmetry  of  composition  without  the  monotony 
of  geometrical  uniformity;  so  it  is  even  in  the 
most  irregular  Japanese  arrangement.  The  ques- 
tion arises  under  what  conditions  this  demand 
for  balance  is  fulfilled,  if  the  objects  in  both 
halves  are  different.  Translated  into  the  meth- 
ods of  experimental  psychology,  the  question 
would  be,  how  far,  for  instance,  a  long  verti- 
cal line  must  be  from  the  centre  of  a  framed 
field,  if  a  line  of  half  its  length  is  at  a  given 
distance  from  the  centre  on  the  other  side ;  how 
far  if  a  point  or  a  curve  of  special  form  or  two 
lines  are  there.  The  variations  are  endless.  In 
an  absolutely  dark  room  is  a  framed  field  of 
black  cloth,  which  is  so  illuminated  that  no  other 
object  in  the  room  is  visible ;  by  a  little  device, 
bright  lines,  points,  curves,  also  letters,  pictures, 
objects,  can  be  made  to  move  over  this  field 
without  showing  the  moving  apparatus,  while 
the  exact  position  of  each  is  indicated  on  a  scale. 
One  line  may  be  given  on  the  left  side,  and  the 
experimenter  has  to  find  the  most  pleasing  posi- 
tion of  a  double  line  on  the  other,  imitating  thus 
the  case  when  two  figures  are  to  be  on  one  side 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   ART  161 

of  a  painting,  while  one  only  is  to  balance  tliem 
on  the  other  side  ;  where  must  it  stand  ?  Start- 
ing from  such  simple  lines,  the  investigation 
turns  to  more  comphcated  questions  :  What  is 
the  influence  of  the  impression  of  depth  ?  —  for 
instance,  a  flat  picture  on  one  side,  a  picture 
representing  depth  on  the  other.  What  is  the 
influence  of  interest  ?  —  a  meaningless  paper  on 
one  side,  a  paper  of  equal  size  with  interesting 
figures  on  the  other  side.  What  is  the  influence 
of  apparent  movement  ?  —  a  picture  of  a  resting 
object  on  one  side,  an  equally  large  object  which 
suggests  movement  in  a  special  direction  on  the 
other.  So  the  problem  can  easily  be  carried  to  a 
complication  of  conditions  which  does  justice  to 
the  manifoldness  of  principles  involved  in  the 
composition  of  paintings,  sculptures,  decorations, 
interiors,  buildings,  and  landscapes.  If,  finally, 
all  these  experiments  are  carried  out  under  dif- 
ferent subjective  conditions,  in  different  states  of 
bodily  position,  of  eye  movement,  of  distance, 
of  attention,  of  fatigue,  under  different  degrees 
of  illumination,  with  different  colors,  with  differ- 
ent associations,  all  with  different  subjects  and  in 
steady  relation  to  the  real  objects  of  historical 
art,  we  learn  slowly  to  understand  our  aesthetic 
pleasure  in  the  balance  of  a  composition,  and  its 
relation  to  the  functions  of  our  body. 

Some  one  may  say  :  All  these  experiments  are 
too  simple  ;  they  may  be  quite  interesting,  but 


162  PSYCHOLOGY   AND   ART 

they  never  reach  the  complication  of  real  art. 
What  are  those  simple  figures  beside  a  Madonna, 
those  primitive  harmonies  beside  a  symphony  ? 
Yet  is  it  a  reproach  to  the  physicist  that  he 
studies  the  nature  of  the  gigantic  thunderstorm, 
not  from  an  equally  large  electrical  discharge, 
but  from  the  tiny  sparks  of  his  little  labora- 
tory machine  ?  And  if  the  physicist  is  inter- 
ested in  the  waves  of  the  ocean,  he  studies  the 
movements  in  a  small  tank  of  water  in  his  work- 
ing-room, and  introduces  simple  artificial  move- 
ments. It  is  just  the  elementary  character  of 
experimental  methods  which  guarantees  their 
power  for  explanation  ;  and  aesthetical  effects 
can  be  psychologically  understood  only  if  we 
study  their  elements  in  the  most  schematic  way 
possible.  The  necessary  presupposition  is,  of 
course,  that  the  aesthetical  attitude  itself  can  be 
maintained  in  the  laboratory  rooms,  and  there 
is  no  reason  for  being  skeptical  about  that. 
With  regard  to  practical  emotions  such  skepti- 
cism may  be  correct :  we  cannot  love  and  hate, 
nor  admire  and  detest  in  the  laboratory,  and  it 
may  even  be  said  that  the  joy  of  the  laboratory 
is  not  agreeable,  and  the  pain  is  not  painful. 
But  the  sesthetical  emotion  remains  intact  pre- 
cisely on  account  of  the  absence  of  every  prac- 
tical relation  in  it.  The  beautiful  or  the  ugly 
thing  lasts  as  such  in  every  corner  of  our  work- 
shop. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  163 

The  experimental  study  of  the  psychological 
effect  of  art  seems  thus  even  more  safely  housed 
than  the  biological  and  historical  study  of  the 
psychological  production  of  art,  and  both  to- 
gether form  already  a  psychological  system  of 
aesthetics  which  certainly  still  has  blanks,  but 
which  is  surprisingly  near  completeness.  Psy- 
chology will  go  on  in  this  way  till  the  most  deli- 
cate cause  and  the  most  subtle  effect  of  each 
artistic  work  are  understood  by  the  action  of 
causal  laws,  Uke  any  other  cause  and  effect  in 
nature. 

IV 

Before  us  lies  the  question  which  is  important 
for  the  teacher  :  how  far  the  results  of  such 
studies  can  become  productive,  or  at  least  sug- 
gestive, for  instruction  in  artistic  drawing.  Here 
again  we  must  separate  the  two  sides,  —  the 
causes  and  the  effects  of  the  beautiful  objects. 
The  causes  which  produce  the  drawing  are  the 
activities  of  the  pupil ;  the  effects  are  the  im- 
pressions on  the  spectator.  The  study  of  the 
causes  will  help  us  to  understand  how  to  train 
the  sesthetical  activities  of  the  pupil ;  the  study 
of  the  effects  will  help  us  to  advise  how  the 
drawing  or  painting  should  be  made  up  in  order 
to  please  others.  The  study  of  the  causes  sug- 
gests to  us  methods  of  teaching ;  the  study  of 
the  effects  suggests  rules  and  facts  which  are 


164  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

to  be  taught.  The  study  of  the  causes  interests 
only  the  teacher  who  handles  the  pupil ;  the 
study  of  the  effects  offers  insight  which  the 
teacher  may  share  with  the  pupil. 

Think  first  of  the  effects.  Psychology  has 
analyzed  the  impressions  on  our  sense  of  beauty, 
and  each  fact  must  express  a  rule  which  can 
be  learned.  Blue  and  red  are  agreeable,  blue 
and  green  are  disagreeable :  therefore  combine 
red  and  blue,  but  not  green  and  blue.  The 
golden  section  of  a  line  is  the  most  agreeable  of 
all  divisions  :  therefore  try  to  divide  all  lines, 
if  possible,  according  to  this  rule.  Such  psy- 
chological prescriptions  hold,  of  course,  for  all 
arts  :  do  not  make  verses  with  lines  of  ten  feet ; 
do  not  compose  music  in  a  scale  of  fifths.  Step 
by  step  we  come  to  the  prescription  for  a  tra- 
gedy, for  a  symphony,  for  a  Renaissance  palace; 
how  much  more  for  the  details  of  a  simple  draw- 
ing !  Fill  the  space  thus  and  thus  ;  take  care  of 
good  balance ;  if  there  is  a  long  line  on  one 
side,  make  the  short  line  on  the  other  side  nearer 
to  the  centre  :  these  are  sesthetical  prescriptions 
which  can  be  learned  and  exercised  like  the  laws 
of  perspective  for  architectural  drawing.  When- 
ever the  pupil  follows  the  rules,  his  drawing  will 
avoid  disagreeable  shocks  to  the  spectator.  I 
am  free,  I  trust,  from  the  suspicion  that  I  over- 
estimate the  value  of  experimental  psychology 
for  teachers ;  I  have  often  attacked  its  misuses. 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND  ART  165 

Here  the  case  is  quite  different.  Such  prescrip- 
tions do  not  prescribe  the  ways  of  teaching,  but 
are  material  of  instruction.  There  is  no  other 
school  subject  for  which  psychology  supplies 
such  material.  Mathematics  and  natural  sci- 
ences, languages  and  history,  are  not  learned  in 
school  with  reference  to  their  psychological  ef- 
fects. Art,  however,  has  an  absolutely  excep- 
tional position.  My  belief,  therefore,  that  meth- 
ods of  teaching  cannot  be  learned  to-day  from 
the  psychological  laboratory  is  no  contradiction 
of  my  acknowledgment  that  artistic  prescrip- 
tions, worthy  to  be  taught,  can  be  deduced  from 
psychology.  I  see  with  great  pleasure  that  the 
development  in  this  direction  goes  steadily  on, 
and  that  children  learn  easily  and  joyfuUy  the 
ways  of  avoiding  ugly  lines  and  arrangements. 

My  theoretical  objections  against  teaching  on 
the  basis  of  psychological  knowledge  interfere 
much  more  with  the  pedagogical  results  which 
may  perhaps  be  indicated  by  the  study  of  the 
psychological  causes  of  art.  If  we  apply  here  our 
theoretical  insight  at  all,  the  result  cannot  have 
the  form.  Teach  your  pupils  to  make  the  draw- 
ing thus  and  so ;  but  the  form,  Teach  thus  and 
80  your  pupils  to  make  a  drawing.  If  we  un- 
derstand the  causes  which  produce  a  beautiful 
drawing,  and  if  by  our  teaching  we  can  influ- 
ence the  central  system  of  the  child  so  that  the 
causes  for  such  production  are  established,  then 


166  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

it  seems  that  the  goal  is  reached.  But  we  are 
not  only  far  from  a  full  understanding ;  we  are 
endlessly  farther  from  such  desired  influences. 
To  know  the  chemical  constitution  of  an  egg 
does  not  mean  the  power  to  produce  an  egg 
which  can  be  hatched.  We  cannot  make  a 
genius,  we  cannot  make  talent ;  and  by  itself  the 
psychological  analysis  only  indicates,  and  that  but 
slightly,  how  to  evolve  from  a  bad  draughtsman 
a  good  one.  We  may  make  the  general  abstrac- 
tion that  constant  training  is  a  good  thing ;  to 
reach  such  a  triviality,  however,  we  need  psycho- 
logy as  little  as  we  need  scientific  physiology  to 
find  out  that  eating  is  useful  for  our  nourish- 
ment. Wherever  psychological  speculation  goes 
farther,  it  is  finally  dependent  upon  secondary 
factors  which  are  determined  by  presuppositions 
of  non-psychological  character,  and  thus  the 
results  may  be  quite  contradictory :  the  one  re- 
commends the  study  of  nature,  the  other  only 
imagination ;  the  one  proposes  flowers  for  mod- 
els, the  other  geometrical  figures  ;  the  one  lines, 
the  other  colors.  Psychology  listens  carefully 
to  all,  but  is  responsible  for  none  of  these  propo- 
sitions. An  examination  of  the  papers  which 
drawing-superintendents  and  drawing-teachers 
usually  read  at  their  meetings  shows,  indeed, 
that  they  belong  for  the  most  part  to  a  species 
well  known  in  all  our  educational  gatherings. 
The  first  half  of  each  paper  is  made  up  of  famil- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  167 

iar  sentences  taken  from  good  textbooks  of  phy- 
siological psychology,  —  the  ganglion  cells  of 
the  optical  centres  play  the  chief  role  in  the 
drawing  associations,  —  and  the  second  half  of 
the  paper  contains  a  list  of  correct  educational 
suggestions ;  only  the  chief  thing,  the  proof  that 
the  suggestions  are  really  consequences  of  the 
textbook  abstracts,  is  forgotten.  The  two  parts 
have  often  not  the  slightest  connection.  The 
second  half  alone  would  appear  commonplace, 
and  the  first  alone  would  appear  out  of  place ; 
together  they  make  a  scholarly  impression,  even 
if  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  each  other. 

Perhaps  one  other  danger  in  these  practical 
movements  of  to-day  deserves  mention.  The 
fact  that  drawings,  paintings,  pictures,  please  us, 
encourages  the  working  out  of  technical  prescrip- 
tions from  them  for  instruction  in  art ;  but  the 
pleasure  must  be  a  pure  and  natural  one,  as  little 
as  possible  dependent  upon  fugitive  fashions  and 
capricious  tastes ;  and  if  our  pleasure  is  a  refined 
eccentricity,  or  even  perversity,  it  is  certain  that 
we  have  no  right  to  infect  with  it  the  taste  of 
the  younger  generation.  Seldom  has  this  danger 
been  so  near  as  in  our  time,  with  its  preraphael- 
itic  and  Japanese  preferences,  with  its  poster  style 
and  its  stylistic  restlessness.  The  healthy  atmo- 
sphere for  the  taste  of  the  child  is  harmonious 
classical  beauty.  The  man  who  has  passed  his 
training  in  pure  beauty  may  reach  a  point  where 


168  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

a  reaction  against  classicism  is  a  sound  and  ma- 
ture sesthetical  desire,  but  to  begin  with  eccentric 
realism  or  with  mysterious  symbolism  in  an  im- 
mature asre  is  a  blunder.  The  educational  mis- 
take  becomes  worse  if  that  style  is  allowed  in 
the  schoolroom  which  is  over-indulged  in  our 
time,  and  which  is  most  antagonistic  to  the 
child's  mind  :  I  mean  the  primitivistic  style  of 
our  posters  and  bindings.  The  simple  forms  of 
primitivistic  art  are  not  a  real  returning  to  the 
beginnings  of  art,  which  would  be  quite  adapted 
to  children.  No ;  this  style  means  an  ironical 
playing  with  the  primitive  forms  on  the  basis  of 
a  most  artful  art.  It  is  masquerading  with  the 
costumes  of  simplicity,  not  real  desire  for  simple 
nature  ;  and  the  spirit  of  irony  alone  makes  it 
possible,  and  so  dangerously  attractive  for  our 
taste.  If  a  school  exhibition  of  drawings  in  the 
style  of  the  Yellow  Book  appears  to  our  eye 
pleasant  and  almost  refreshing,  after  the  tiresome 
elaborations  of  our  own  school-time,  it  is  our 
moral  duty  to  ask,  not  what  we  like,  but  what 
children  ought  to  learn  to  like.  Irony  toward  the 
most  mature  products  of  civilization  ought  not 
to  flourish  in  a  child's  mind ;  and  if  the  ironical 
curves  of  the  Beardsley  style  become  the  trained 
methods  of  children,  who  finally  believe  that 
they  really  see  nature  in  conventionalized  poster 
style  and  use  those  lines  thoughtlessly  as  pat- 
terns, the   result   is   decidedly  a  peryerse  ong. 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND  ART  169 

Nevertheless,  the  future  may  be  wiser ;  psycho- 
logy will  perhaps  help  pedagogics  to  find  the 
way  to  develop  the  facility  of  pupils  in  produ- 
cing fair  drawings ;  and  if  we  are  willing  to  take 
the  hope  for  the  fact,  we  may  say  that  psycho- 
logy gives  to  the  teacher  prescriptions  for  train- 
ing the  child  to  draw  better  and.  better,  and, 
above  all,  prescriptions  which  the  child  itself 
can  learn,  prescriptions  for  the  composition  and 
arrangement  of  a  drawing  which  shall  please 
others.  Art  can  thus  be  fully  described  psycho- 
logically and  explained  with  regard  both  to  its 
conditions  and  to  its  effects,  and  both  groups  of 
facts  can  become  suggestive  for  the  construction 
of  rules  for  the  teaching  of  drawing.  The  rela- 
tions of  psychology  and  art  are  then  important 
and  suggestive  ones  ;  and  yet,  is  that  our  final 
word  ?     Has  philosophy  nothing  else  to  say  ? 


I  know  quite  well  that  there  are  plenty  of  men 
who  w^ould  say,  Yes,  that  is  the  whole  story.  I 
think,  however,  the  number  is  increasing  of  those 
who  see  that  while  half  a  truth  is  true  as  fai 
as  its  half  goes,  half  a  truth  is  a  lie  if  it  pre- 
tends to  be  the  whole.  It  seems  to  me,  indeed, 
that  this  psychological  scheme  is  one-sided,  and 
that  our  time  confronts  dangers  for  its  ideal  life 
if  triumphant  psychology  crushes  under  its  feet 
every  idealistic  opposition.     It  is  with  art  here 


170  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

exactly  as  with  science  and  with  morality.  Psy- 
chology proclaims :  We  can  describe  and  explain 
every  thought  of  science  and  every  decision  of 
morality  from  an  atomistic  naturalistic  point  of 
view ;  we  can  understand  it  as  the  necessary 
result  of  the  foregoing  psychophysical  condi- 
tions. There  is,  then,  no  absolute  truth  in  sci- 
ence, no  absolute  virtue  in  morality ;  duties  are 
trained  associations,  and  the  value  of  our  actions, 
as  of  our  thinking,  lies  in  their  agreeable  effects. 
Art  easily  joins  the  others ;  if  there  is  no  truth 
and  no  virtue  which  is  more  than  the  product 
of  circumstances,  then  there  is  no  beauty  which 
has  absolute  value ;  then  beauty  has  no  other 
meaning  than  that  which  psychology  describes  ; 
it  is  the  effect  of  certain  psychological  processes, 
and  the  cause  of  certain  agreeable  psychological 
results ;  and  if  we  are  careful  to  prepare  those 
conditions  and  to  insure  that  outcome,  then  we 
have  done  all  that  the  sesthetical  luxury  of  soci- 
ety can  wish  for  its  entertainment. 

I  do  not  deny  the  right  of  psychology  to 
consider  the  world  of  beautiful  creations  from 
such  a  point  of  view,  and  as  a  psychologist  I  do 
my  best  to  help  in  such  investigations;  but  I 
cannot  forget  that  this  view-point  is  an  artificial 
one  for  living,  real  art ;  that  it  is  artificial  both 
for  the  subject  who  creates  art  and  for  the 
subject  who  enjoys  art ;  that  it  is  artificial  wher- 
ever art  is  felt  in  its  full  meaning. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  171. 

I  say  that  psychology  has  its  full  right  of 
way  'within  its  own  limits ;  it  has  limits,  however, 
and  they  are  much  narrower  than  the  superficial 
impression  may  make  us  believe.  Psychology 
has  to  describe  and  to  explain  mental  life ;  but 
description  and  explanation  are  possible  only  for 
objects.  Explanation  always  presupposes  de- 
scription, and  the  very  idea  of  description  pre- 
supposes the  existence  of  objects.  Psychology 
considers  mental  life,  therefore,  only  in  so  far  as 
it  can  be  thought  as  a  series  of  existing  objects, 
—  objects  which  exist  in  consciousness  as  phy- 
sical objects  exist  in  space. 

We  have  not  to  ask  here  why  it  is  important 
for  the  purposes  of  life  and  thought  to  consider 
the  mental  world  as  if  it  were  a  world  of  objects. 
We  are  sure  that  in  the  primary  reality  our 
inner  life  does  not  mean  to  us  such  a  world  of 
objects  only.  Our  perceptions  and  conceptions 
may  reach  us  as  objects,  while  our  feelings,  our 
emotions,  our  judgments,  our  volitions,  do  not 
come  in  question  with  us  first  as  objects  which 
we  passively  perceive,  but  as  activities  which  we 
live  out,  as  activities  the  reality  of  which  cannot 
be  described  and  causally  explained ;  it  must  be 
felt  and  understood  and  interpreted.  In  short, 
we  are  not  merely  passive  subjects  with  a  world 
of  conscious  objects ;  we  are  willing  subjects, 
whose  acts  of  will  have  not  less  reality  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  they  are  no  objects  at  all.     To 


172  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

consider  the  mental  world,  including  feeling  and 
the  will,  psychologically  means  an  artificial  trans- 
formation and  substitution  which  may  have  its 
value  for  special  purposes,  but  which  leads  us 
away  from  reality.  The  reality  of  the  will  and 
feeling  and  judgment  does  not  belong  to  the 
describable  world,  but  to  a  world  which  has  to 
be  appreciated;  it  has  to  be  linked,  therefore, 
not  by  the  categories  of  cause  and  effect,  but  by 
those  of  meaning  and  value.  And  in  this  world 
of  will  relations  grows  and  blossoms  and  flowers 
Art. 

Let  us  examine  the  characteristics  of  this  great 
network  of  will  attitudes,  in  which  the  personality 
feels  itself  a  willing  subject,  and  acknowledges 
all  other  subjects  as  volitional  also.  One  distinc- 
tion is  of  paramount  importance :  our  will  may 
be  thought  of  as  an  individual  attitude,  or  it 
may  arise  with  the  meaning  of  an  over-individual 
decision  that  demands  acknowledgment  by  every 
subject,  and  that  is  willed,  therefore,  independ- 
ently of  our  merely  personal  desires.  It  is  an 
act  of  will  which  is  meant  as  necessary  for  every 
subject,  which  ought  to  be  acted  by  everybody : 
we  call  it  duty.  From  a  purely  psychological 
standpoint,  the  will  thought  as  object  is  deter- 
mined in  any  case,  —  the  virtuous  act  as  well  as 
the  crime,  the  nonsensical  judgment  as  well  as 
the  wise  one.  From  the  critical  standpoint  of 
reality,  the  special  will  decision  is  necessary  if  it 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART  173 

belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  will,  binds  every 
will,  not  by  natural  law,  but  by  obligation ;  and 
it  can  be  and  is  unnecessary  if  it  is  merely 
personal  arbitrariness. 

This  doubleness  of  duty  and  arbitrariness  in 
our  will  repeats  itself  in  every  division  of  possible 
will  activities,  and  there  exist  four  such  depart- 
ments of  relations  of  will  to  the  world,  four 
possibilities  of  reacting  on  the  world.  First, 
the  subject  may  change  the  objects  of  the  world 
by  his  actions ;  secondly,  may  decide  for  addi- 
tional supplements  to  the  given  objects ;  thirdly, 
may  transform  the  objects  in  his  thought  so  that 
they  form  a  connection  ;  and  fourthly,  may  trans- 
form the  objects  so  that  they  stand  each  for 
itself.  If  these  four  possible  subjective  acts  are 
performed  by  the  individual  personal  arbitrary 
will,  they  represent  individual  values.  The  ac- 
tions toward  the  world  are  then  such  changes  of 
the  objects  as  are  useful  and  practical  for  our 
comfort ;  the  supplementations  are  then  the  play 
of  our  fancy  and  imagination ;  the  connections 
are  then  expressions  of  our  hope  or  fear ;  the 
isolations,  finally,  are  means  to  our  personal 
enjoyment.  These  four  functions  may  be  carried 
out  also  as  functions  of  the  deeper,  over-indi- 
vidual, necessary  will ;  that  is,  as  functions  of 
duty.  Those  actions  which  alter  and  change 
the  objective  world  are  then  moral  actions ;  the 
ideas  which  supplement  the  world  make  up  re- 


174  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

ligion ;  those  transformations  which  bring  out  a 
connection  between  the  objects  of  the  world 
compose  scientific  truth ;  and  finally,  those  trans- 
formations which  isolate  the  objects,  so  that 
they  stand  each  for  itself,  form  the  domain  of 
beauty. 

VI 

Truth  and  beauty  thus  represent  duties,  logical 
and  sesthetical  duties,  just  as  morality  represents 
ethical  duties.  We  choose  and  form  the  physical 
axiom  in  science  so,  and  not  otherwise,  because 
our  will  is  bound  by  duty  to  do  so ;  that  is,  only 
that  particular  decision  of  our  affirming  will  can 
demand  acknowledgment  by  every  subject ;  and 
thus  art  chooses  the  forms  and  lines,  the  colors 
and  curves,  of  the  Sistine  Madonna  just  so,  and 
not  otherwise,  because  only  this  decision  of  the 
creating  will  is  as  it  ought  to  be,  as  duty  pre- 
scribes, as  it  can  demand  that  every  willing 
subject  ought  to  acknowledge  it.  Everything 
in  this  world  is  beautiful,  and  is  a  joy  forever  if 
it  is  so  transformed  that  it  does  not  suggest 
anything  else  than  itself,  that  it  contains  all 
elements  for  the  fulfillment  of  the  whole  in 
itself.  We  do  not  ask  for  the  arms  and  legs  of 
the  person  whose  marble  bust  the  artist  gives 
us,  and  we  do  not  ask  for  his  complexion,  either. 
We  do  not  ask  how  the  field  and  forest  look 
outside  of  the  frame  of  the  landscape  painting. 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   ART  175 

and  we  do  not  ask  what  the  persons  in  the 
drama  have  done  before  and  will  do  after  the 
story.  Our  works  of  art  are  not  in  our  space 
and  not  in  our  time ;  their  frame  is  their  own 
world,  which  they  never  transcend.  Real  art 
makes  us  forget  that  the  painting  is  only  a  piece 
of  canvas,  and  that  Hamlet  is  only  an  actor,  and 
not  the  prince.  We  forget  the  connections,  we 
abstract  from  all  relations,  we  think  of  the  object 
in  itself ;  and  wherever  we  do  so,  we  proceed 
aesthetically.  And  if  we  enjoy  the  great  works 
of  art,  the  essential  function  is  not  the  individ- 
ual enjoyment  of  our  senses  and  feelings,  like 
the  enjoyment  in  eating  and  drinking ;  no,  it  is 
the  volitional  acknowledgment  of  the  will  of  the 
artist.  We  will  with  him  ;  and  if  we  appreciate 
his  work  as  beautiful,  we  acknowledge  that  it  is 
as  we  feel  that  it  ought  to  be ;  that  our  will  of 
thinking  that  particle  of  the  world  is  lifted  to  its 
duties ;  that  we  have  transcended  the  sphere  of 
merely  personal  arbitrariness  and  its  desires  and 
agreeable  fulfillments ;  that  we  have  reached 
the  sphere  of  over-individual  values.  Whoever 
understands  art  as  will  function  believes  in  art 
and  appreciates  it  as  a  world  of  duties ;  psycho- 
logy has  not  to  try  to  understand  it  as  such,  but 
to  transform  it  into  something  else,  into  a  set  of 
objects  which  have  causes  and  effects.  Psycho- 
logy must  destroy  the  deepest  meaning  of  art, 
just   as   it   disregards   the    deepest    meaning    of 


176  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  ART 

truth  and  morality,  if  it  tries  to  present  its  view 
as  the  last  word  about  our  inner  activities. 

And  if  art  is  thus  a  realization  of  duties  which 
have  their  real  meaning  in  this  acknowledgment 
of  the  will,  in  what  light  should  we  see  all  these 
technical  rules  and  prescriptions  for  facilitating 
in  the  child  the  production  of  artistic  works,  and 
for  preventing  him  from  making  disagreeable 
drawings?  Those  rules  and  prescriptions  remain 
quite  good  and  valid.  They  do  for  real  beauty 
and  art  just  what  the  police  and  the  prisons  on 
the  one  side,  the  training  of  habits  and  manners 
on  the  other  side,  do  for  real  morality.  Nobody 
will  underestimate  the  value  of  the  fact  that  our 
children  learn  through  training  a  thousand  habits 
which  keep  them,  as  a  matter  of  course,  out  of 
conflict  with  the  laws,  and  that  police  and  jails 
remind  them  again  and  again,  Do  not  leave  the 
safe  tracks.  Whoever  lives  a  noble  life,  however, 
means  by  morahty  and  duty  something  else  and 
something  higher.  Habits  and  jails  do  not  in- 
sure that  in  an  important  conflict  of  life,  where 
personal  interests  stand  against  duty,  the  bad 
action  may  not  triumph.  Only  a  conscience 
which  is  penetrated  by  morality  stands  safe  in 
all  storms,  and  such  a  conscience  is  not  brought 
out  by  technical  prescriptions,  nor  by  punishments 
and  jails ;  no,  only  by  the  obUgatory  power  of 
will  upon  will,  by  the  inspiring  life  of  subjects 
we  acknowledge,  by  the  example  of  the  heroes 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   ART  177 

of  duty,  that  speaks  directly  from  will  to  will, 
and  for  which  we  cannot  substitute  psychologi- 
cal training  and  police  officers.  And  thus  the 
duty  of  art.  Do  not  believe  that  the  easier  pro- 
duction of  a  not  disagreeable  drawing  means  a 
positive  gain  for  real  art  and  beauty :  it  raises 
the  standard,  it  upUfts  the  level  of  aesthetic  pro- 
duction, just  as  the  standard  of  moral  behavior 
is  lifted  by  the  existence  of  a  watchful  police, 
and  it  is  extremely  important.  Do  not  forget, 
however,  that  aesthetical  life  also  needs  not  only 
the  policeman's  function,  but  above  all  the  min- 
ister's and  helper's  function  ;  in  other  words, 
not  technical  rules,  but  duties ;  not  easy  produc- 
tion, but  convictions ;  not  knowledge  of  psy- 
chological effects,  but  belief  in  absolute  values. 

This  attitude  becomes  the  more  important  as 
this  whole  view  shows  that  the  world  of  art  is  in 
no  way  subordinate  to  or  less  true  than  the  world 
of  science.  The  reality  is  neither  that  which 
the  scientist  describes  nor  that  which  the  artist 
sketches ;  both  are  transformations  for  a  special 
purpose.  The  scientist,  we  have  seen,  trans' 
forms  for  the  purpose  of  connection,  and  in  that 
service  he  constructs  atoms  which  exist  nowhere 
but  in  his  thought.  The  artist  transforms  in 
the  interest  of  isolation,  and  in  that  service  he 
constructs  his  drawings.  The  mechanical  pro- 
cess of  drawing  as  such  is,  of  course,  not  art  in 
itself  J  it  is  the  indifferent  means  of  expression 


178  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  ART 

which  can  communicate  science  as  well  as  art. 
Just  as  words  can  serve  Shakespeare  as  well  as 
Darwin,  so  lines  and  curves  can  serve  the  mathe- 
matician and  the  physicist  as  well  as  the  artist ; 
the  purpose  alone  separates  the  poet  from  the 
biologist,  the  scientist  from  the  artist.  And  if 
art  thus  means  a  world  which  is  exactly  as  true 
and  valuable  as  the  world  of  science,  let  us  not 
forget  that  the  school  lesson  in  drawing  means 
contact  with  this  world  of  art,  —  that  is,  with 
the  special  spirit  of  aesthetic  duties;  and  that 
every  drawing-teacher  ought  to  be,  not  an 
sesthetical  policeman  only,  but  an  inspiring  be- 
liever in  these  sacred  aesthetic  duties. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 


A  STUDY  of  the  relations  between  psychology 
and  the  science  of  history  emphasizes  necessarily 
the  limits  of  psychology.  I  know  quite  well 
that  the  choice  of  such  a  subject  easily  suggests 
the  suspicion  of  heresy ;  whoever  asks  eagerly 
for  the  limits  of  a  science  appears  to  the  first 
glance  in  a  hostile  attitude  towards  it.  To  em- 
phasize its  limiting  boundaries  means  to  restrain 
its  rights  and  to  lessen  its  freedom.  It  seems, 
indeed,  almost  an  anti-psychological  undertaking 
for  any  one  to  say  to  this  young  science,  which 
is  so  full  of  the  spirit  of  enterprise :  Keep  within 
the  bounds  of  your  domain.  But  you  remember 
the  word  of  Kant :  "  It  is  not  augmentation,  but 
deformation  of  the  sciences,  if  we  efface  their 
limits."  Kant  is  speaking  of  logic,  but  at 
present  his  word  seems  to  be  for  no  field  truer 
than  for  psychology.  Psychology,  it  seems  to 
me,  encouraged  by  its  quick  triumphs  over  its 
old-fashioned  metaphysical  rival,  to-day  moves 
instinctively  towards  an  expansionistic  policy. 
A  psychological  imperialism  which  dictates  laws 


180  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

to  the  whole  world  of  inner  experience  seems 
often  to  be  the  goal.  But  sciences  are  not  like 
the  domiciles  of  nations ;  their  limits  cannot  be 
changed  by  mere  agreement.  The  presupposi- 
tions with  which  a  science  starts  decide  for  all 
time  as  to  the  possibilities  of  its  outer  extension. 
The  botanists  may  resolve  to-morrow  that  from 
now  on  they  will  study  the  movements  of  the 
stars  also ;  it  is  their  private  matter  to  choose 
■whether  they  want  to  be  botanists  only  or  also 
astronomers,  but  they  can  never  decide  that 
astronomy  shall  become  in  future  a  part  of 
botany,  supposing  that  they  do  not  claim  the 
Milky  Way  as  a  big  vegetable.  Every  exten- 
sion beyond  the  sharp  limits  which  are  deter- 
mined by  the  logical  presuppositions  can  thus  be 
only  the  triumph  of  confusion,  and  the  ultimate 
arbitration,  which  is  the  function  of  episte- 
mology,  must  always  decide  against  it.  It  is 
thus  love  and  devotion  for  psychology  which 
demands  that  its  energies  be  not  wasted  by  the 
hopeless  task  of  transgressions  into  other  fields. 

Philosophers  and  psychologists  are  mostly  will- 
ing to  acknowledge  such  a  discriminative  atti- 
tude when  the  relations  between  psychology  and 
the  normative  sciences,  ethics,  logic,  aesthetics,  are 
in  question.  They  know  that  a  mere  descrip- 
tion and  causal  explanation  of  ethical,  aesthetical, 
and  logical  mental  facts  in  spite  of  its  legitimate 
relative  value  cannot  in  itself  be  substituted  for 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  181 

the  doctrines  of  obligation.  The  line  of  demar- 
cation thus  separates  with  entire  logical  sharp- 
ness the  duties  from  the  facts,  the  duties  which 
have  to  be  appreciated  in  their  validity  as  ideals 
for  the  will,  and  the  facts  which  have  to  be 
analyzed  and  explained  in  their  physical  or  psy- 
chical existence  as  objects  of  perception.  But 
can  we  overlook  the  symptoms  of  growing  oppo- 
sition against  the  undiscriminative  treatment  of 
the  world  of  facts  in  the  empirical  sciences? 
The  creed  of  those  who  beUeve  in  such  uni- 
formity is  simple  enough :  the  universe  is  made 
up  of  physical  and  psychical  processes,  and  it 
is  the  purpose  of  science  to  discover  their  ele- 
ments and  their  laws  ;  we  may  differentiate  and 
classify  the  sciences  with  regard  to  the  different 
objects  which  we  analyze  or  with  regard  to  the 
different  processes  the  laws  of  which  we  study, 
but  there  cannot  exist  in  the  world  anything 
which  does  not  find  a  suitable  place  in  a  system 
in  which  all  special  sciences  are  departments  of 
physics  or  of  psychology.  In  a  period  of  natu- 
ralistic thinking  like  that  of  the  Darwinistic  age 
the  intellectual  conscience  may  be  fascinated  and 
hypnotized  by  the  triumphs  of  such  atomizing 
and  law-seeking  thought  even  to  the  point  of 
forgetting  all  doubts  and  contradictions.  But 
the  pendulum  of  civilization  begins  to  swing  in 
the  other  direction.  The  mere  decomposition  of 
the  world  has  not  satisfied  the  deep  demand  for 


182  PSYCHOLOGY  AND   HISTORY 

an  inner  understanding  of  the  world ;  the  dis- 
covery of  the  causal  laws  has  not  stilled  the  thirst 
for  emotional  values,  and  there  has  come  a  chill 
with  the  feeling  that  all  the  technical  improve- 
ment which  surrounds  us  is  a  luxury  which  does 
not  make  life  either  better  or  worthier  of  the 
struggle.  The  idealistic  impulses  have  come 
to  a  new  life  everywhere  in  art  and  science 
and  politics  and  society  and  religion ;  histori- 
cal and  philosophical  thinking  has  revived  and 
rushes  to  the  foreground.  We  begin  to  remem- 
ber again  what  naturalism  too  easily  forgets, 
that  the  interests  of  life  have  not  to  do  with 
causes  and  effects,  but  with  purposes  and  means, 
that  in  life  we  feel  ourselves  as  units  and  as  free 
agents,  bound  by  culture  and  not  only  by  na- 
ture, factors  in  a  system  of  history  and  not  only 
atoms  in  a  mechanism. 

Such  a  general  reaction  demands  its  expres- 
sion in  the  world  of  science  too,  and  there  can- 
not be  any  surprise  if  psychology  has  to  stand 
the  first  attack.  The  naturalistic  study  of  the 
physical  facts  may  not  be  less  antagonistic  to 
such  idealistic  demands,  and  yet  it  is  the  de- 
composition of  the  psychical  facts  which  op- 
presses us  most  immediately  in  our  instinctive 
strife  for  the  rights  of  the  personality.  The 
antithesis  becomes  thus  most  pointed  in  the  con- 
flict between  psychology  and  history,  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  only  two  possibilities  are  open. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  183 

One  possibility  is  that  these  sciences  stay  yoked 
together,  the  one  forcing  the  other  to  follow  its 
path.  Either  of  two  events  may  then  happen. 
Either  psychology  will  remain  as  hitherto  the 
stronger  one;  in  which  case  history  must  follow 
the  paths  of  psychological  analysis  and  be  satis- 
fied with  sociological  laws ;  every  effort  of  history 
which  goes  beyond  that  is  then  unscientific,  and 
the  works  of  our  great  historians  must  seek  shel- 
ter under  the  roof  of  art.  Or — and  this  second 
case  has  all  odds  in  favor  of  it  —  the  belief 
in  the  unity  of  personality  will  become  stronger 
than  the  confidence  in  science,  which  merely  de- 
composes, and  psychology  will  be  subordinated 
to  the  historical  view  of  man.  That  is  possible 
under  a  hundred  forms,  but  the  final  result  must 
always  be  the  same,  the  ruin  of  real  psychology. 
I  think  this  undermining  of  psychology  with 
the  tools  of  history  is  to-day  in  eager  progress. 
Here  belong,  of  course,  all  the  most  modern 
attempts  to  supplement  the  regular  analyzing 
psychology  by  a  pseudo-psychology  which  by 
principle  considers  the  mental  life  as  a  unity 
and  asks  not  about  its  constitution  but  about  its 
meaning.  Whether  authors,  half  unconsciously, 
alternate  with  these  two  views  from  chapter  to 
chapter,  or  whether  they  demand  systematically 
tliat  both  kinds  of  psychology  be  acknowledged, 
makes  no  essential  difference.  Both  forms  are 
characteristic  for  a  period  of  transition;  both 


184  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

must  lead  in  the  end  to  giving  up  fully  the 
analyzing  view,  to  shifting  the  results  of  suoh 
analysis  over  to  physiology,  and  thus  to  confin- 
ing psychology  entirely  to  the  anti-causal  cate- 
gories, that  is,  to  denying  psychology  altogether. 
Such  turnings  of  the  scientific  spirit  are  slow, 
but  if  history  and  psychology  remain  chained  up 
together,  the  symptoms  of  the  future  are  too 
clear :  there  is  no  hope  for  psychology. 

But  there  is  a  second  alternative  open.  The 
chain  which  forces  psychology  and  history  to 
move  together  may  be  broken  ;  the  one  may  be 
acknowledged  as  fully  independent  of  the  other. 
What  appears  as  a  conflict  of  contradictory 
statements  may  then  become  the  mutual  sup- 
plementation of  two  partial  truths,  just  as  a 
body  may  appear  very  different  from  the  geo- 
metrical, from  the  physical,  and  from  the  chemi- 
cal points  of  view,  while  each  one  gives  us  truth. 
To  those  who  have  followed  the  recent  develop- 
ment of  epistemological  discussion,  especially  in 
Germany,  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  this  logi- 
cal separation  of  history  and  psychology  is,  in- 
deed, the  demand  of  some  of  the  best  students 
of  logic.  They  claim  that  the  scientific  inter- 
est in  the  facts  can  and  must  take  two  abso- 
lutely different  directions :  we  are  interested 
either  in  the  single  fact  as  such  or  in  the  laws 
under  which  it  stands,  and  thus  we  have  two 
groups  of   sciences  which  have  nothing  to  do 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   HISTORY  183 

with  each  other,  sciences  which  describe  the 
isolated  facts  and  sciences  which  seek  their  laws. 
A  leading  logician  baptizes  the  first,  therefore, 
idiographic  sciences,  the  latter  nomothetic  sci- 
ences ;  idiographic  is  history  ;  nomothetic  are 
physics  and  psychology.  Psychology  gives  gen- 
eral facts  which  are  always  true,  but  concerning 
which  it  has  not  to  ask  whether  they  are  realized 
anywhere  or  at  any  time ;  history  refers  to  the 
special  single  fact  only,  without  any  relation  to 
general  facts. 

n 

I  consider  this  logical  separation  as  a  liberat- 
ing deed,  not  only  because  it  is  the  only  way 
for  psychology  to  escape  its  ruin  through  the 
interference  of  an  historically  thinking  idealism, 
and  also  not  only  because  the  value  and  unity 
and  freedom  of  the  personality  which  history 
preaches  can  now  be  followed  up  without  inter- 
ference on  the  part  of  psychology,  but  because, 
independent  of  any  practical  results,  it  seems  to 
me  the  necessary  outcome  of  epistemological 
reflection.  And  yet  the  arguments  which  have 
led  to  this  separation  appear  to  me  mistaken  and 
untenable  in  every  respect.  I  agree  heartily 
with  the  decision,  but  I  absolutely  reject  the 
motives.  No  antithesis  is  possible  between  sci- 
ences which  study  the  isolated  facts  and  sciences 
which  generalize ;  such  a  methodological  differ- 


is*  PSYCHOLOGY   AND   HISTORY 

ence  does  not  exist.  We  shall  see  that  it  must 
be  replaced  by  a  difference  of  another  kind,  but 
the  end  must  be  the  same :  psychology  and  his- 
tory must  never  come  together  again.  To  criti- 
cise the  one  way  of  attaining  this  end  and  to 
illuminate  the  other  new  way  which  I  propose  is 
the  purpose  of  the  following  considerations. 

We  must  proceed  at  first  critically  ;  what  is 
the  truth  of  the  view  which  contrasts  idiographic 
and  nomothetic  sciences?  At  the  first  glance 
the  importance  of  the  discrimination  seems  so 
evident  that  it  appears  hard  to  understand  how 
it  could  ever  have  been  overlooked.  It  seems  a 
matter  of  course  that  the  empirical  sciences  can 
ask  either  about  the  general  facts  of  reality,  the 
laws  which  are  true  always  and  everywhere  and 
which  do  not  say  what  happened  on  a  special 
place  and  in  a  special  time,  or  on  the  other 
hand  about  the  single  facts  which  are  character- 
ized just  by  their  uniqueness.  We  may  be  in- 
terested in  the  physical  and  chemical  laws  of 
fire,  but  our  interest  in  the  one  great  fire  which 
destroyed  Moscow  has  an  absolutely  different 
logical  source,  and  if  we  extend  our  historical 
interest  from  the  physical  to  the  psychical  side, 
and  investigate  the  stream  of  associations  which 
passed  through  the  mmd  of  Napoleon  during  the 
days  of  that  fire,  we  have  again  an  absolutely 
different  kind  of  interest  from  that  of  the  psy- 
choloofist  who   studies  the  laws  of   association 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  187 

and  inhibition,  which  are  true  for  every  mortal. 
How  small  from  a  logical  standpoint  appears  the 
difference  between  the  search  for  physical  laws 
and  the  search  for  psychological  laws  compared 
with  the  unbridffable  chasm  between  the  search 
for  laws  and  the  inquiry  for  special  facts  which 
happened  once  !  And  this  difference  grows  if 
we  consider  that  all  our  feelings  and  emotions 
refer  to  the  special  single  object,  not  to  any 
laws,  that,  above  all,  the  personalities  with  which 
we  come  in  contact  come  in  question  for  us  just 
in  their  singleness,  and  that  we  ourselves  feel 
the  value  of  our  life  and  the  meaning  of  our 
responsibility  in  the  uniqueness  of  the  acts  by 
which  we  mark  our  individual  role  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind.  These  arguments  of  recent 
epistemological  discussions  wiU  easily  find  the 
ear  of  the  multitude.  Common  sense,  which 
demands  for  itself  the  prerogative  of  being  in- 
consistent, will  probably  hesitate  only  at  the 
unavoidable  postulate  of  this  standpoint,  that 
also  the  development  of  our  solar  system,  of  our 
earth,  of  our  flora  and  fauna,  belongs  then  to 
history  and  not  to  natural  science,  as  they  de- 
scribe a  process  which  happened  once,  and  not 
a  law. 

I  may  begin  my  criticism  at  the  periphery  of 
the  subject,  moving  slowly  to  the  centre.  I 
claim  first  that  all  natural  sciences,  of  which 
psychology  is  one,  do  not  seek  laws  only,  but  set 


188  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

forth  also  judgments  about  the  existence  of  ob- 
jects. Of  course,  we  can  make  the  arbitrary 
decision  that  we  acknowledge  the  natural  sci- 
ences as  such  only  so  far  as  they  give  eternal 
laws  without  reference  to  their  realization  in  a 
special  place  or  in  a  special  time,  while  any 
judgment  about  the  existence  here  or  there, 
now  or  then,  has  to  be  housed  under  the  roof 
of  history.  The  sciences  as  they  practically  are 
would  then  be  mixtures  of  historical  and  natu- 
ralistic statements,  the  historical  factor  diminish- 
ing the  more,  the  more  abstract  the  science, 
reaching  its  minimum  in  pure  mechanics.  Such 
decision  has  only  recently  found  able  defense, 
but  do  we  not  destroy,  by  its  acceptance,  the 
■whole  meaning  of  natural  science?  Are  the 
laws  for  themselves  alone  still  of  any  scientific 
interest  at  all  ?  Why  do  we  care  at  all  for  such 
general  laws,  as  the  law  of  causality,  the  most 
general  of  them,  which  embraces  all  the  others, 
is  included  already  in  the  presuppositions  of  sci- 
ence, and  thus  anticipated  beforehand?  When 
formal  logic  or  mathematics  deals  with  A  and  B 
and  C,  they  state  valid  relations  without  asking 
whether  A,  B  or  C  is  given  anywhere  or  at  any 
time,  even  without  excluding  the  possibihty  that 
their  real  existence  may  be  impossible.  The 
scientific  judgments  of  physics  and  psychology, 
on  the  other  hand,  have  lost  all  their  meaning 
if  we  deprive  them  of  the  presupposition  that 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   HISTORY  189 

objects  which  prove  the  validity  of  such   laws 
have  real  existence  in  the  world  o£  experience. 

We  can  construct  well-founded  physiological 
laws  also  for  the  organism  of  the  centaur  and 
psychological  laws  for  the  minds  of  nixes  and 
water  fairies,  but  neither  attempt  belongs  with- 
in the  system  of  science.  The  claim  of  exist- 
entiality  is  not  explicitly  expressed  in  the  for- 
mulation of  scientific  knowledge,  not  because  it 
is  unessential,  but  because  it  is  a  matter  of 
course.  The  larger  the  circle  for  which  the 
law  is  vahd,  the  more  we  find  these  included 
judgments  of  reality  deprived  of  their  reference 
to  special  local  and  temporal  data,  but  even  in 
the  most  general  propositions  of  mechanics  such 
judgments  are  tacitly  included.  The  question 
is  not  whether  the  objects  with  which  the  laws 
of  mechanics  deal  have  real  existence  from  a 
philosophical  point  of  view ;  certainly  they  have 
not.  The  important  point  is  that  mechanics 
by  its  laws  tries  at  the  same  time  to  make  us 
believe  that  even  the  atoms  have  existence.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  existential  judgment  must  be- 
come the  more  detailed  the  more  special  the  law 
is,  that  is,  the  more  comphcated  the  conditions 
of  its  reaUzation.  If  the  psychologist  states  the 
laws  of  the  feelings,  he  claims  that  it  is  not  true 
that  only  men  without  feelings  exist ;  he  claims 
that  men  with  feelings  have  reality  too.  If  he 
gives  us  the  more  special  laws  of  ethical  feelings, 


190  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

he  claims  that  experience  knows  men  with  ethi- 
cal emotion.  If  he  goes  on  with  his  specializa- 
tion of  the  psychical  laws,  claiming  that  under 
special  conditions  the  ethical  emotion  of  obedi- 
ence to  the  state  comes  to  inhibit  the  desire  for 
life,  he  tells  ns  that  this  really  happened.  His 
psychological  law  becomes  finally  only  still  more 
detailed  if  he  lays  it  down  that  under  such  and 
such  conditions  obedience  to  the  state  discharo-es 
itself  in  the  drinking  of  a  hemlock  potion  in 
spite  of  antagonistic  suggestions  of  escape  from 
philosophical  friends.  It  is  a  psychological  law, 
and  yet  it  claims  at  the  same  time  that  all  this 
once  at  least  really  happened,  while  the  com- 
plication of  conditions  practically  excludes  the 
possibility  of  its  happening  more  than  once  in 
the  world  of  our  experience. 

Of  course,  it  remains  a  law  of  general  char- 
acter with  regard  to  absolute  space  and  absolute 
time ;  when  all  conditions  including  our  solar 
system  and  all  the  events  on  the  earth  are  given 
once  more  in  infinity,  then  Socrates  necessarily 
must  drink  once  more  the  poisoned  cup.  But 
in  the  limited  space  and  time  of  our  experience 
the  conditions  for  the  realization  of  such  a  psy- 
chological law  can  have  been  given  only  once, 
and  that  they  really  once  were  given  is  decidedly 
claimed  and  thus  silently  reported  by  the  law. 
If  our  opponents  maintain  that  the  naturalistic 
sciences  need  as  supplement  an  historical  descrip- 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   HISTORY  191 

tion  of  one  special  stage  of  the  world  to  give  a 
foothold  for  the  working  of  the  eternal  laws,  we 
can  thus  reject  this  external  help  for  the  expla- 
nation of  the  world,  as  the  laws  themselves  fur° 
nish  all  that  we  need.  The  system  of  the  laws  is 
at  the  same  time  a  full  and  graduated  system  of 
existential  propositions  with  regard  to  the  limited 
space  and  time  of  our  experience.  If  ever  and 
anywhere  in  the  empirical  universe  a  molecule 
had  moved  otherwise  or  another  thought  had 
passed  through  a  consciousness,  then  the  system 
of  laws,  thought  in  ideal  perfection,  would  have 
demanded  a  change.  Our  physics  and  psycho- 
logy presuppose  and  assert  the  real  existence  of 
exactly  our  world.  They  do  not  seek  the  laws 
with  the  intention  of  neglecting  and  ignoring 
the  special  facts. 

Ill 

The  separation  of  the  single  facts  from  the 
general  facts  is  thus  untenable,  because  the  ex- 
planatory law  includes  the  description ;  but  we 
can  also  emphasize  the  other  side  of  this  mutual 
relation  :  every  description  includes  explanation, 
every  assertion  of  a  special  fact  demands  refer- 
ence to  the  general  facts.  A  description  has  a 
logical  value  only  if  it  points  towards  a  law. 
We  describe  a  process  by  the  help  of  conceptions 
which  are  worked  up  from  the  general  facts, 
common  to  a  group  of  objects,  and  these  general 


192  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

conceptions  are  the  more  valuable  for  the  pur* 
poses  of  description  the  more  their  content  is  a 
condensed  representation  of  real  objective  con- 
nections. Descriptions  in  popular  language 
make  use  of  conceptions  which  are  deduced  from 
superficial  similarity,  but  every  new  insight  into 
physical  and  psychological  laws  gives  to  these 
general  conceptions  a  more  and  more  valuable 
shape.  The  history  of  science  is  the  steady 
development  of  the  means  of  description ;  there 
is  no  description  which  by  its  use  of  conceptions 
does  not  aim  at  working  out  the  laws.  Thus, 
far  from  the  trivial  belief  that  the  law  is  merely 
a  description  of  facts,  we  ought  not  to  forget 
that  the  description  of  facts  involves  the  laws 
and  is  only  another  form  of  their  expression. 
To  describe  a  physical  thing  as  a  group  of  atoms 
or  an  idea  as  a  group  of  sensations  demands  the 
whole  knowledge  of  the  psychological  and  me- 
chanical laws  and  condenses  in  its  conceptions 
the  progress  of  science.  To  separate  the  descrip- 
tive report  from  the  explaining  apperception  is 
thus  again  impossible. 

It  might  appear  that  this  does  not  hold  for  all 
kinds  of  description ;  we  communicate  with  one 
another  in  practical  life  without  relying  on  gen- 
eral conceptions.  But  our  communication  then 
is  no  description.  Any  mode  of  personal  ex- 
pression, gestures  or  tears,  may  tell  us  what  is 
going  on  in  the  mind  of  another  without  refer- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   HISTORY  193 

ence  to  psychological  laws.  But  the  fact  Is  that 
they  give  no  description  either ;  they  give  a 
suggestion.  The  words  of  practical  life,  the 
words  of  the  poet,  and,  as  we  may  add  at  once, 
the  words  of  the  historian,  work  like  such  move- 
ments of  expression  ;  they  make  every  mental 
vibration  resound  in  us,  because  they  force  us 
unintentionally  or  with  conscious  art  to  follow 
the  suggestion  and  to  imitate  the  mental  experi- 
ence. The  rhythm  and  the  shade  of  the  words 
may  then  be  substituted  for  logical  exactitude, 
and  interjections  may  have  deeper  influence  than 
complete  judgments,  but  all  that  is  decidedly  no 
description,  as  a  description  demands  a  commu- 
nication of  the  elements.  Such  a  suggestion 
allows  us  an  understanding  of  the  meaning,  but 
gives  us  no  knowledge  of  the  constitution. 
Where  a  single  object  really  has  to  be  described, 
there  conceptions  and  laws  are  inevitable,  and 
the  historian  cannot  make  an  exception. 

But  just  this  fact,  that  description  and  expla- 
nation cannot  be  separated  and  that  the  concep- 
tion includes  the  law,  has  opened  in  recent 
philosophical  discussions  a  new  way  of  thought 
which  also  seems  to  lead  to  those  claims  which 
we  rejected.  Granted,  it  is  said,  that  every 
description  presupposes  generalizing  abstractions, 
but  such  abstraction  must  then  lead  us  away 
from  the  endless  manifoldness  of  the  reality. 
Every  scientific  description  deals  with  physical 


194  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

or  psychological  abstractions;  does  that  not 
mean  that  we  need  still  another  kind  of  treat- 
ment which  does  justice  to  the  existing  richness 
and  fullness  of  the  real  single  fact?  If  we  give 
this  mission  to  history,  we  acknowledge  that  its 
communications  would  not  be  ordinary  descrip- 
tions, but  in  any  case  we  should  again  have  the 
separated  camps  with  the  antithesis :  Manifold- 
ness  and  abstraction,  single  fact  and  general 
fact.  But  the  presupposition  is  wrong;  the 
manifoldness  of  the  reality  is  not  endless  and 
the  abstracting  conceptions  are  not  at  all  unfit 
to  do  justice  to  the  richness  of  the  single  fact. 
The  single  conception  abstracts,  but  the  connec- 
tion of  conceptions  in  the  sentence  reconstructs 
again.  On  the  other  hand,  whatever  is  the 
possible  object  of  perception  and  discrimination 
must  be  the  possible  object  of  descriptive  deter- 
mination. Whether  the  task  of  a  complete  con- 
ceptional  description  is  difficult  or  not  is  no 
question  of  principle ;  impossible  it  is  not.  The 
ability  to  perceive  differences  is  even  inferior 
compared  with  the  power  to  separate  the  differ- 
ences conceptionally,  and  the  abstracting  de- 
scription of  science  must,  therefore,  frequently 
increase  and  not  decrease  the  manifoldness  of 
the  object.  We  know  about  the  objects  more 
than  we  perceive ;  above  all,  the  description  can 
never  leave  behind  it  a  perceivable  remainder 
which  from  its  too  great  manifoldness  excludes 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  195 

description.  The  full  variety  of  the  single  facts 
thus  belongs  just  as  much  as  the  most  general 
law  to  the  physical  and  psychological  sciences ; 
the  antithesis  psychology  and  history  as  coincid- 
ing with  the  antithesis  abstraction  and  mani- 
foldness  of  reality  is  then  impossible.  That 
history  stands,  indeed,  nearer  to  reality  than  any 
psychology  we  shall  later  fully  acknowledge, 
but,  as  we  shall  see,  for  very  different  reasons ; 
history  abstracts,  we  shall  see,  not  less  than 
psychology,  and  psychology  is  interested  in  the 
variety  of  the  facts  just  as  much  as  is  history. 

IV 

This  brings  us  to  our  central  arguments: 
Every  science  considers  the  single  facts  in  their 
relations  to  other  facts,  works  towards  connec- 
tion, towards  generalities.  Science  means  con- 
nection and  nothing  else,  and  history  also  aims 
at  general  facts,  or  it  cannot  hope  for  a  place  in 
the  system  of  science.  Does  that  mean  that  it  is 
valueless  to  consider  the  single  fact  as  it  stands 
for  itself,  isolated  and  separated  from  everything 
else  ?  Certainly  not ;  the  isolation  is  not  less 
valuable  than  the  connection,  but  it  never  forms 
a  science ;  it  is  the  task  of  art.  The  single  fact 
belongs  to  art  and  not  to  history  ;  history  has  to 
do  with  the  general  facts.  That  is  the  thesis 
which  I  must  interpret  and  defend.  One  point, 
of  course,  is  clear  before  the  discussion.     If  we 


196  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

maintain  that  history  has  also  to  work  up  its 
material  with  respect  to  the  general  facts  and 
not  with  regard  to  the  single  facts,  then  it  is 
evident  that  there  is  in  the  deepest  principle  o£ 
the  inquiry  no  methodological  difference  between 
physics  and  psychology  on  the  one  side  and 
history  on  the  other.  But  we  insisted  that  an 
important  difference  does  exist.  The  difference 
must  then  be  not  in  the  kind  of  treatment,  but 
in  the  material  itself.  To  be  sure,  there  cannot 
be  a  physical  or  psychical  object  in  the  universe 
which  would  not  be  possible  material  for  psy- 
chology or  physics;  if  history  deals  with  a 
material  which  is  different  from  the  possible 
objects  of  those  empirical  sciences,  then  it  must 
deal  with  facts  which  differ  from  the  physical 
and  psychical  objects  in  their  kind  of  existence; 
in  short,  the  difference  between  psychology  and 
history  is  not  a  methodological  but  an  ontological 
one. 

We  must  then  ask  what  kind  of  existence 
belongs  to  the  material  with  which  physics  and 
psychology  deal,  and  how  it  is  related  to  reality ; 
above  all,  how  far  reality  offers  still  another 
kind  of  facts  which  could  be  the  substance  of 
other  sciences.  Reality  means  to  us  here  the 
immediate  experience  which  we  live  through. 
This  immediate  truth  of  Hfe  may  be  transformed 
and  remoulded  in  theories  and  sciences,  and 
these  remodeHngs  of  reality  may  be  highly  valu- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  197 

able  for  special  purposes  of  life ;  we  may  even 
reach  finally  a  point  of  reconstruction  from 
Tvhich  the  subjective  experience  appears  as  an 
illusion  and  the  supplementation  stands  as  the 
only  truth.  Yet  the  importance  of  such  con- 
structions must  not  make  us  forget  that  we  have 
then  left  reality  behind  us.  Our  doubting  and 
remoulding  itself  belongs  to  the  reality  for 
which  its  products  can  never  be  substituted. 
And  this  primary  reality  can,  of  course,  never 
be  reached  when  we  start  from  the  finished 
theories  of  the  physical  or  psychological  sciences. 
Whether  we  pretend  that  the  world  is  a  content 
of  our  consciousness,  a  system  of  psychological 
ideas,  or  whether  we  start  from  the  mechanical 
universe  and  consider  experience  as  effect  of  the 
outer  world  on  the  consciousness,  or  whether  we 
confuse  the  two  and  call  the  world  a  product  of 
the  brain,  it  is  all  equally  misleading  if  we  seek 
the  reality,  as  each  view  presupposes  equally  the 
psychological  or  physical  constructions.  It  is 
then,  of  course,  also  impossible  for  us  to  reach 
the  less  remoulded  primary  experience  by  going 
backward  through  the  genetic  development  of 
the  individual  or  of  the  race  to  an  earlier  simpler 
stage  of  experience.  Just  this  genetic  tracing 
backward  fully  presupposes  the  categories  of  the 
psychological  view ;  we  must  have  already  con- 
sidered our  own  inner  life  as  a  complex  combi- 
nation of  elements  before  it  has  a  meaning  to 


198  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

call  the  mental  life  of  the  child  or  of  the  animal 
less  complex ;  the  starting  point  of  the  genetic 
development  is  thus  itself  an  artificial  construc- 
tion which  lies  further  away  from  the  primary 
experience. 

If  we  thus  escape  all  theories  and  stand  firm 
against  the  suggestions  which  psychology  and 
physics  plentifully  bring  to  us,  then  we  find  in 
the  reality  nothing  of  ideas  or  of  mechanical 
substances,  neither  consciousness  nor  a  connected 
universe.  The  reality  we  experience  does  not 
know  the  antithesis  of  psychical  and  physical 
objects,  but  in  the  primary  stage  merely  the 
antithesis  subject  and  object.  We  feel  our 
personal  reality  in  our  subjective  attitudes,  in 
our  will  acts  which  we  do  not  perceive  but  which 
we  live  through,  and  with  the  same  immediacy 
we  acknowledge  other  personalities  as  subjects 
of  will.  They  too  are  not  objects  which  we 
merely  perceive,  but  we  acknowledge  them,  by 
our  feeling,  as  subjects  with  whom  we  agree  or 
disagree  and  whose  reality  is  thus  not  less  cer- 
tain than  our  own.  Our  acts  as  subjects  are 
directed  towards  objects  which  in  reality  exist 
only  as  such  objects  of  will,  that  is,  as  values. 
They  are  our  ends  and  means,  our  tools  and  pur- 
poses, and  nothing  is  to  us  real  that  is  not  called 
to  be  selected  or  rejected,  to  be  favored  or  dis- 
missed. Subjective  acts  of  will  and  objects  of 
will  form  the  reaHty,  the  whole  reality,  nothing 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   HISTORY  199 

lies  outside,  and  nothing  is  valid  beyond  this 
world  of  will  relations ;  and  even  if  we  form 
judgments  about  objects  which  we  think  as 
independent  of  the  will,  this  judgment  and  this 
thought  itself  is  an  act  of  wUl  working  towards 
a  purpose. 

As  soon  as  we  begin  to  bring  order  into  the 
manifoldness  of  this  real  world,  the  subjective 
acts  as  well  as  the  objects  divide  themselves  into 
two  groups,  —  those  of  individual  character  and 
those  which  are  common  to  all,  over-individual. 
This  division  is  not  a  result  of  counting  whether 
several  subjects  or  by  chance  only  one  subject 
have  made  the  decision  or  appreciated  the  object : 
it  is  a  question  of  intention  merely.  My  act  is 
over-individual  if  it  is  willed  with  the  meaning 
that  it  belongs  to  every  subject  which  I  acknow- 
ledge, and  my  object  is  over-individual  in  so  far 
as  I  consider  it  as  a  possible  object  of  attitude 
for  every  subject.  My  over-individual  will-act  is 
that  factor  of  reality  which  we  call  duty  ;  every 
duty  lies  in  us  as  subjects,  as  our  own  deepest 
will,  and  yet  as  more  than  our  individual  deci- 
sion. The  over-Individual  objects  are  those 
which  we  call  physical;  the  individual  objects 
are  the  psychical  ones;  we  must  only  not  for- 
get that  these  physical  and  psychical  objects 
are  in  reality  not  in  question  as  independent  ob- 
jects of  perception,  but  are  always  related  to  the 
will ;  they  are  not  contents  of  consciousness  and 


200  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

mechanical  bodies  in  a  continuous  space,  but 
suggestions  which  have  a  meaning,  things  which 
have  a  use.  We  find  thus  four  factors  of  real- 
ity, beyond  whose  vahdity  a  constructive  meta- 
physics alone  can  go.  Metaphysics  may  ask 
whether  the  individual  and  over-individual  acts 
do  not  blend  in  an  absolute  subject  and  whether 
the  objects  are  not  posited  by  such  a  subject 
of  higher  order ;  epistemology  must  be  satisfied 
N^ith  the  more  modest  task  of  settling  how  we 
deal  with  this  reality  in  our  scientific  or  aesthetic 
knowledge.  Reality  itself  is,  of  course,  neither 
art  nor  science,  but  life.  Art  and  science  must 
be  thus  transformations  of  the  material  which 
life  offers  to  us,  while  these  transformations 
themselves  are  acts  of  the  subjects  and  thus 
belonging  to  those  will-formations  which  claim 
for  themselves  an  over-individual  character,  cre- 
ating the  values  of  beauty  and  truth. 

V 

The  acts  which  lead  from  life  to  art  and 
science  are  thus  for  epistemology  free  acts  of 
that  subjectivity  which  we  find  in  ourselves  by 
immediate  feeling,  and  which  we  acknowledge 
in  others  by  an  understanding  of  their  proposi- 
tions and  suggestions  ;  they  are  not  functions  of 
the  psychophysical  organism,  not  psychophysical 
processes,  as  we  must  have  reached  already  the 
artificial   reconstruction  of    science    before   the 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   HISTORY  201 

subject  is  replaced  by  that  object  among  other 
objects,  the  psychophysical  personality.  Scien- 
tific and  aesthetic  acts  are  not  the  only  functions 
of  the  real  subject ;  the  ethical  and  others  stand 
coordinated,  but  we  are  concerned  here  only 
with  the  two  functions  which  do  not  aim  to 
change  and  to  improve  the  world,  but  to  rethink 
it  in  beautiful  or  truthful  creations.  It  seems 
to  me  now  that  the  two  attitudes  are  in  every 
respect  antagonistic ;  to  express  their  direction 
in  a  short  formula,  I  should  say  science  connects 
the  factors  of  reality ;  art,  on  the  other  hand, 
isolates  them.  The  material  of  science  and  of 
art  is  then  the  same,  though  treated  by  a  differ- 
ent method.  Both  can  deal  with  all  the  four 
factors  of  reality,  with  individual  acts  and  over- 
individual  acts,  with  individual  objects  and  over- 
individual  objects.  Life  does  not  isolate  fully, 
and  gives  no  complete  connection ;  whatever  we 
turn  to  with  our  will  has  features  which  lead  us 
further  and  further  to  ever  new  interests ;  life 
does  not  let  us  sink  into  the  one  alone  —  we 
rush  beyond  it  to  new  realities.  And  life  does 
not  give  connections  beyond  the  immediate 
needs  of  practical  purposes  in  the  narrow  circle 
of  chance  experience.  Wherever  is  full  isolation 
of  single  facts  there  is  beauty,  wherever  truth 
there  must  be  full  connection. 

The  assertion   that  every  isolated  fact  in  its 
singleness  means  beauty  has  for  us  here  only 


202  PSYCHOLOGY   AND   HISTORY 

the  character  of  a  critical  argument  and  is  not 
for  itself  an  object  of  our  discussion.  It  has  for 
us  merely  the  negative  purpose  of  proving  that 
the  singleness  cannot  be  characteristic  of  his- 
tory. We  cannot  here  defend  this  assertion  by 
detailed  discussion;  we  have  only  to  elucidate 
its  meaning.  Certainly  the  real  life,  too,  brings 
us  pulses  of  experience  in  which  our  will  is  cap- 
tivated by  the  given  experience,  satisfied  with 
the  object  in  itself  or  in  the  acknowledgment  of 
other  subjective  acts ;  then  we  have  the  beauty 
of  nature,  the  beauty  of  forms  and  of  land- 
scapes, of  love  and  of  friendship.  Of  course, 
it  is  only  an  exception  when  life  offers  to  us  in 
the  untransformed  reality  such  complete  beauty ; 
it  remains  the  duty  of  art  to  change  the  world 
till  everything  is  eliminated  that  leads  the  sub- 
ject beyond  the  single  experience,  and  the  will 
can  rest  in  the  single  fact.  The  world  of  ob- 
jects is  thus  transformed  in  painting  and  sculp- 
ture, the  world  of  subjective  acts  remoulded  in 
poetry.  The  sentiment  or  the  conflict  which 
the  poet  suggests  to  us,  the  bust  or  the  land- 
scape which  the  artist  brings  before  our  eye,  is 
severed  from  the  practical  world  ;  as  long  as 
anything  connects  it  with  the  background  of  the 
daily  world  it  may  be  useful  or  inspiring  or  in- 
structive, but  it  is  not  beautiful.  The  poet  pro- 
jects his  work  into  an  ideal  past ;  the  painter 
cuts  an  ideal  space  out  of  the  reality,  and  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  203 

sculptor  fills  an  ideal  space,  not  the  space  of  our 
surrounding,  to  take  care  thus  that  the  acts  and 
objects  may  not  link  into  our  real  world,  may 
never  become  causes  for  outer  effects,  motives 
for  actions,  or  centres  for  associations  which  lie 
beyond  the  frame. 

We  ought  not  to  become  skeptical  in  regard 
to  this  point  on  account  of  the  overhasty  gen- 
eralizations in  which  empirical  psychology  mostly 
characterizes  the  aesthetic  act  as  rich  in  asso- 
ciations. The  epistemological  problem  we  are 
discussing  cannot  be  settled  by  psychology,  yet 
as  soon  as  the  facts  are  expressed  in  the  terms 
of  psychological  language  they  cannot  possibly 
assert  the  opposite  of  the  epistemological  truth. 
But  there  is  no  reason  for  such  a  conflict,  as 
psychology  is  undoubtedly  in  the  wrong.  The 
psychological  claim  is  based  on  the  general  theory 
that  all  pleasant  mental  states  represent  an  in- 
crease of  activity,  and  with  it  an  increase  of 
associations,  while  all  unpleasant  states  are 
marked  by  a  decrease  of  activity  and  lack  of 
associations.  I  think  that  is  wrong ;  there  are 
different  kinds  of  increase  and  different  kinds 
of  decrease  in  both  ideas  and  actions.  The  an- 
tithesis pleasure  and  displeasure  does  not  at  all 
coincide  with  increase  and  decrease  if  we  do  not 
arbitrarily  select  such  emotions  as  joy  on  the 
one  and  grief  on  the  other  side.  Increase  of 
activity    characterizes    pleasant   and   unpleasant 


204  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

states,  only  in  the  pleasant  states  it  produces 
action  of  the  extensors,  in  the  unpleasant  states 
action  of  the  flexors.  In  the  same  way  decrease 
of  activity  can  have  a  double  type :  it  can  have 
its  ground  in  the  absence  of  stimulations,  and 
this  is,  indeed,  characteristic  of  some  unpleasant 
states ;  but  the  lack  of  outer  action  can  have  its 
ground  also  in  the  fact  that  every  motor  impulse 
goes  to  the  antagonistic  muscles  equally.  This 
increase  of  tonicity  "without  possible  action  is 
characteristic  for  one  pleasant  state  above  all, 
the  aesthetic  one.  The  increase  and  decrease  of 
associations  is  here,  as  always,  parallel  with  the 
motor  impulses.  Here  also  increase  of  associa- 
tions is  essential  for  some  pleasant  states,  but 
for  some  unpleasant  ones  too,  only,  like  muscle 
activity,  it  is  in  antagonistic  du'ections,  in  the 
one  case  turning  to  the  future,  in  the  other  case 
falling  back  to  the  past.  And  the  same  double- 
ness  is  to  be  noted  in  the  decrease  of  associa- 
tions ;  in  some  unpleasant  states  the  decrease 
comes  from  a  mere  lack  of  ideational  impulses, 
in  some  pleasant  states  from  the  fascination 
which  leads  every  ideational  impulse  again  to 
the  object  itself,  so  that  no  thought  can  lead 
beyond  it.  This  is  again  true,  above  all,  for  the 
aesthetic  state.  The  beautiful  object  includes  all 
that  it  suggests  in  itself,  and  where  we  connect 
we  sin  against  the  spirit  of  beauty. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  205 

VI 

By  the  contrast  with  art  the  fullest  light  falls 
on  the  process  of  science  ;  every  step  towards 
science  leads  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  in- 
complete connections  of  life  are  severed  by  art, 
but  made  complete  by  science,  while  the  material 
is  the  same.  We  had  four  groups  of  facts  in 
reality,  and  we  must  thus  have  four  groups  of 
sciences  which  bring  systematic  connections  into 
the  four  different  fields.  We  have  the  science 
of  the  over-individual  objects,  that  is,  physics ; 
secondly,  the  science  of  the  individual  objects, 
that  is,  psychology ;  thirdly,  the  sciences  of  the 
over-individual  will-acts,  that  is,  the  normative 
sciences ;  and  last,  not  least,  the  sciences  of  the 
individual  will-acts,  that  is,  the  historical  sci- 
ences. Physics  and  psychology  have  thus  to  do 
with  objects  ;  history  and  the  normative  systems, 
ethics,  logic,  aesthetics,  deal  with  will-acts.  Psy- 
chology and  history  have  thus  absolutely  differ- 
ent material ;  the  one  can  never  deal  with  the 
substance  of  the  other,  and  thus  they  are  sepa- 
rated by  a  chasm,  but  their  method  is  the  same. 
Both  connect  their  material ;  both  consider  the 
single  experience  under  the  point  of  view  of  the 
totality,  working  from  the  special  facts  towards 
the  general  facts,  from  the  experience  towards 
the  system.  And  yet  the  difference  of  material 
must,  in  spite  of  the  equality  of  the  methodo- 


206  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

logical  process,  produce  absolutely  different  kinds 
of  systems  of  science.  We  must  consider  again 
from  the  standpoint  of  real  life  how  the  connec- 
tion of  objects  is  different  from  the  connection 
of  attitudes,  and  how  the  purposes  of  the  sys- 
tematizing reconstruction  are  different  in  the 
two  cases. 

We  and  the  other  subjects  have  objects  which 
are  in  reality,  as  we  have  seen,  objects  of  our 
will.  Why  have  we  an  interest  in  considering 
the  objects  from  a  scientific  standpoint,  that  is, 
in  systematized  connection  ?  If  we  do  so,  it 
must  serve,  of  course,  a  special  purpose  in  our 
real  life.  The  purpose  is  clear.  We  cannot  do 
the  duties  of  our  life,  that  is,  we  cannot  act  on 
the  objects,  if  we  do  not  know  what  to  expect 
from  them  with  regard  to  the  reality  which  we 
prepare,  and  we  call  the  reality  which  we  can 
still  prepare  the  future.  We  must  ask,  there- 
fore, what  we  have  to  expect  for  the  future  from 
the  objects  alone,  that  is,  from  the  objects  thought 
as  if  they  were  independent  from  the  subjective 
will  reaction.  The  answer  to  this  question  as  to 
our  justified  expectations  is  the  system  of  physi- 
cal and  psychological  sciences.  To  reach  this 
end  we  must  think  the  objects,  the  individual  or 
over-individual  ones,  as  if  they  were  no  longer 
objects  of  a  will,  as  if  the  subject  were  deprived 
of  its  real  activity  and  were  a  merely  passive  per- 
ceiving subject  the  objects  of  which  are  thus 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  207 

definitely  cut  away  from  the  will.  Our  interest 
was  to  determine  their  influence  on  the  future. 
We  thus  consider  every  object  as  the  cause  of 
an  expected  effect,  and  call  those  characteristics 
of  the  object  which  determine  our  expectation  of 
the  effect  its  elements.  Physics  and  psychology 
thus  look  on  their  objects  as  complexes  of  ele- 
ments. It  is  the  task  of  science  to  reconstruct 
and  to  transform  the  objects  till  each  is  con- 
ceived as  such  a  combination  of  elements  that 
the  effects  to  be  expected  can  be  fully  deter- 
mined from  the  elements.  In  this  service  grew 
up  the  atom  doctrine  in  physics  and  the  sensa- 
tion doctrine  in  psychology.  Each  object  is 
thus  linked  into  a  causal  system ;  each  is  con- 
sidered not  as  that  which  it  really  is,  but  as  a 
complex  of  constructed  factors  which  are  substi- 
tuted for  the  purpose  of  the  causal  connection, 
and  each  is  in  question  in  its  relation  to  all  the 
others.  The  world  thus  becomes  a  system  of 
causally  linked  objects  which  can  be  described 
by  their  elements,  while  these  elements  them- 
selves are  chosen  from  the  point  of  view  of 
explanation  by  causality.  The  determination  of 
the  effects  by  means  of  the  elementary  causes  is 
expressed  by  the  laws  which  give  the  rules  for 
our  expectations.  We  can  say  thus  that  physics 
and  psychology  may  very  well  consider  any  spe- 
cial facts,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  they  certainly 
do  not  ignore  the  special  facts  at  all,  but  they 


208  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

consider  them  with  regard  to  the  causal  law, 
and  the  laws  as  types  of  causal  connections  are 
thus  the  only  general  facts  towards  which  the 
systematized  study  of  objects  can  lead  us. 

Quite  different  is  the  systematic  connection  of 
ihe  subjective  will-attitudes ;  we  may  abstract 
here  at  first  from  the  over-individual  attitudes 
and  concentrate  our  interest  on  the  individual 
will-acts.  In  psychology  the  will  -  attitude  as 
such,  as  act  of  the  real  subject,  cannot  have  any 
place  whatever ;  psychology  deals  with  objects ; 
the  subjective  attitude  is  never  an  object ;  it  is 
never  perceived  ;  it  is  experienced  by  immediate 
feeling  and  must  be  understood  and  interpreted, 
but  not  described  and  explained.  If  psychology 
wishes  to  treat  of  the  will,  the  psychophysical 
organism  must  be  substituted  for  the  real  subject, 
and  thus  the  will  be  considered  as  a  process  in 
the  world  of  objects.  The  description  of  any 
known  will-acts  as  psychophysical  functions,  that 
is,  as  illustrations  of  psychological  laws,  thus  as 
a  matter  of  course  belongs  to  psychology,  and  if 
the  psychologist  should  analyze  into  psycho- 
physical elements  and  explain  as  causally  deter- 
mined all  will-acts  and  human  functions  of  the 
last  three  thousand  years,  he  would  not  tran- 
scend the  limits  of  psychology.  It  would  be  a 
very  useless  psychological  undertaking,  but  it 
would  be  such  and  not  history.  History  starts 
from  and  deals  with  the  real  subjective  will-acts 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  209 

■wlilch  cannot  be  found  in  the  world  of  psycho- 
physical objects. 

Our  personal  life  in  its  political,  economical, 
religious,  scientific,  aesthetic,  technical,  and  prac- 
tical aspects  is  a  manifoldness  of  will-attitudes 
and  acknowledg-ments.  We  live  in  the  midst  of 
a  variety  of  political  and  social,  technical  and 
practical  institutions,  but  no  institution  means 
anything  else  than  expectations  and  demands 
which  reach  our  will,  and  suggestions  towards 
which  we  take  attitudes.  State  and  church, 
legal  community  and  social  set,  what  else  are 
they  but  will-attitudes  which  we  acknowledge 
and  which  are,  therefore,  never  understood  in 
their  real  meaning  if  they  are  considered  as  de- 
scribable  objects,  but  which  must  be  interpreted 
and  appreciated  as  subjective  will-relations,  striv- 
ing towards  purposes  and  ends.  And  to  under- 
stand all  the  technical  and  practical  institutions 
which  civihzation  brings  to  us  means  again  not 
to  describe  or  explain  them,  but  to  interpret 
them  as  will-suggestions  to  be  imitated.  The 
machine  and  the  book,  the  law  and  the  poem, 
are  not  physical  and  psychical  objects  for  our 
interests  as  living  men,  but  suggestions  and  de- 
mands for  the  understanding  of  the  intentions 
and  attitudes  of  other  subjects  which  we  can 
enter  into  only  by  taking  an  imitating  or  reject- 
ing attitude,  thus  reaching  will  by  will.  All  our 
knowing   and   believing,   our   enjoying   and   re- 


210  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

specting  —  as  long  as  we  abstract  from  their 
over-individual  values  —  all  our  education  and 
civilization,  our  politics  and  our  professional 
■work,  is  such  a  complex  of  real  affirmations  and 
negations,  demands  and  inhibitions,  agreements 
and  disagreements,  which  have  to  be  understood 
and  felt  and  interpreted,  but  which  are  not 
touched  in  their  reality  if  merely  their  psycho- 
physical substitutions  are  analyzed  and  causally 
explained.  To  be  a  Chinese  or  a  Mohammedan, 
a  symbolist  or  an  Hegelian  or  an  atomist,  means 
to  be  the  subject  of  special  complexes  of  will- 
attitudes  and  nothing  else.  If,  for  instance,  we 
substitute  the  race  for  the  state,  then,  of  course, 
we  have  objects  before  us  and  no  longer  subjec- 
tive attitudes,  but  then  we  deal  with  biological 
conceptions  and  no  longer  with  history. 

VII 

The  manifoldness  of  will-acts  the  totality  of 
which  forms  my  real  personality  thus  refers  in 
every  act  to  the  will  acts  and  attitudes  of  other 
subjects  which  I  acknowledge  or  oppose,  imitate 
or  overcome.  These  demands  and  suggestions 
of  others  are  not  in  question  in  my  life  as  causes 
or  partial  causes  of  my  will ;  they  have  not  to 
be  sought  in  the  interest  of  a  causal  connection  ; 
they  are  merely  conditions  which  I  as  subject  of 
attitude  and  acts  presuppose  for  my  free  decision, 
and  which  are  thus  logically  contained  in  it ;  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  211 

connection  is,  therefore,  not  a  causal,  but  merely 
a  teleological  one.  The  endless  -world  of  will- 
acts  which  stands  thus  in  teleologically  determin- 
ing relation  to  our  own  will-attitudes  forms  the 
only  material  of  history. 

The  material  is,  of  course,  unlimited.  If 
every  act  of  ours  means  an  attitude  towards  acts 
of  others  which  we  must  try  to  understand,  it 
is  clear  that  those  others  are  understood  only 
if  their  acts  again  are  interpreted  as  attitudes 
towards  the  propositions  and  demands  and  sug- 
gestions of  others,  and  so  on  and  on.  Every 
will-act  is  thus  ideally  related  to  an  unlimited 
manifoldness  of  other  acts,  just  as  the  movement 
of  every  grain  of  sand  is  causally  related  to  every 
molecule  in  the  universe.  It  is  the  unique  task 
of  history  as  a  science  to  work  out  and  make 
complete  this  teleological  system  of  individual 
will-relations,  thus  to  bring  out  the  connections 
between  our  acts  and  all  the  acts  which  we  must 
acknowledge  as  somehow  teleologically  influen- 
cing our  own.  While  physics  and  psychology 
thus  produce  a  connected  system  of  causes  and 
effects,  linking  all  objects  which  stand  in  con- 
nection with  our  objects,  history  follows  up  all 
the  subjective  acts  which  stand  in  will-relation  to 
our  subjective  attitudes. 

Physics  and  psychology,  as  we  have  seen, 
reach  this  end  through  striving  towards  laws 
and  causality  ;   that,   of  course,  cannot  be  the 


212  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

way  of  history.  The  objects  interested  us  only 
as  factors  which  influence  the  future,  and  the 
laws  by  which  we  have  connected  them  have 
satisfied  this  expectant  interest.  The  subjects, 
on  the  other  hand,  do  not  interest  us  primarily 
as  causes  of  effects.  Of  course,  we  are  able  to 
consider  them  also  as  objects  which  produce 
effects,  and  that  aspect  may  become  important  to 
us  in  many  practical  respects ;  psychophysics  will 
fully  satisfy  this  kind  of  interest.  And  in  the 
same  way  we  may  look  on  the  development  of 
peoples  with  an  interest  in  what  we  have  to  ex- 
pect from  them  ;  they  are  then  sociological  or- 
ganisms, the  laws  of  which  we  study ;  but  such 
study  is  not  history.  The  aim  of  the  real  his- 
torian is  not  to  prophesy  the  future.  Peoples 
never  learn  from  history,  and  the  forgotten  doc- 
trine that  we  ought  to  study  history  to  find  out 
what  we  have  to  expect  from  the  future  stands 
on  the  same  level  with  its  contemporary,  the 
doctrine  that  it  is  the  purpose  of  art  to  instruct 
us  and  to  make  us  better.  No,  the  historian 
makes  us  understand  the  system  of  will-attitudes 
to  which  our  individual  will  is  related.  That, 
indeed,  alone,  is  our  primary  interest  in  the  will- 
acts  of  other  subjects ;  we  want  to  understand 
them,  not  to  analyze  them  into  elements ;  we 
want  to  interpret  their  meanings  and  not  to  cal- 
culate their  future.  The  objects  awake  our  ex- 
pectations ;  the  subjects  interest  our  appreciation, 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  213 

and  all  that  we  want  to  know  about  them  is  with 
what  other  attitudes  they  agree  or  disagree.  We 
thus  have  the  logical  aim,  to  consider  them  in 
their  relations  to  all  other  will-attitudes  and  to 
work  out  the  system  of  these  connections;  that 
is,  to  consider  the  institutions  which  are  the 
representatives  of  will-suggestions,  together  with 
the  personalities  themselves,  as  links  of  this  end- 
less chain  of  will-relations. 

The  purpose  of  history  is  not  reached  until 
every  institution  and  personality  with  which  we 
may  be  in  a  direct  or  indirect  will-relation  is  un- 
derstood as  a  complex  of  agreements  and  disa- 
agreements,  that  is,  of  will-attitudes  towards  other 
subjects.  This  regress  must  be,  of  course,  infi- 
nite, just  as  no  physical  process  can  be  reached 
which  has  not  again  causes  and  effects  ;  and  this 
task  demands  also,  like  the  naturalistic  sciences, 
a  continual  transformation.  Just  as  the  physical 
object  is  not  really  a  complex  of  atoms  and  the 
psychological  idea  not  really  a  complex  of  sen- 
sations, but  must  be  in  thought  transformed  into 
such  to  make  causal  connection  possible,  so  in 
exactly  the  same  way  history  must  reconstruct 
the  personalities  and  institutions  as  complexes  of 
will-attitudes,  which  they  really  are  not,  but  as 
which  they  must  be  considered  to  make  the  un- 
broken teleological  connection  possible.  And, 
again,  like  physics  and  psychology,  history  too 
cannot  communicate  to  us  the  whole  of  the  con- 


214  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

nected  system,  but  has  to  work  out  the  general 
facts  which  give  to  every  single  fact  at  once  its 
place  in  the  whole  system.  These  general  facts 
in  the  teleological  will-system  cannot  be  causal 
laws,  but  must  be  will-relations  of  more  and 
more  comprehensive  character.  Just  as  in  the 
world  of  objects  the  general  law  covers  and  de- 
termines the  causal  changes  of  an  unlimited 
number  of  objects,  so  the  important  will-actions 
cover  and  determine  in  the  world  of  subjects  the 
impulses  and  suggestions  for  the  decisions  and 
attitudes  of  an  unlimited  number.  The  resfu- 
larity  of  the  causal  law  and  the  importance  of 
the  imposing  will  lift  in  a  corresponding  way  the 
general  fact  over  the  level  of  the  single  facts. 
It  is  the  work  of  history  to  make  conspicuous 
the  increasingly  important  will-influences,  as  it 
is  the  work  of  physics  and  psychology  to  work 
out  the  laws.  If  I  say  I  am  a  German,  I  want 
to  assert  by  that  statement  that  I  acknowledge 
by  my  will  a  world  of  laws,  institutions,  hopes 
and  ideals  which  are  the  will-demands  of  an 
undetermined  multitude  of  subjects ;  this  multi- 
tude constitutes  the  historical  nation  of  Ger- 
many. But  it  would  be  unscientific  if  I  should 
start  to  interpret  the  attitude  of  every  one  who 
is  part  of  that  chaotic  mass  of  subjects ;  it  is 
the  work  of  science  to  find  those  influences 
which  determined  the  multitude,  those  will-acts 
which  were  imitated  and  acknowledged  by  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  215 

unimportant  subjects.  The  chaos  thus  becomes 
order,  and  Goethe  and  Beethoven,  Kant  and 
Hegel,  Luther  and  Bismarck,  stand  as  the  gen- 
eral facts  for  the  millions  and  millions  of  less 
important  subjects  who  were  determined  by  their 
suggestions.  Any  individual's  historical  place 
is  then  characterized  by  his  will-attitudes  to- 
wards the  leaders.  Just  as  the  naturalist  knows 
a  whole  hierarchy  of  sciences  which  work  out 
increasingly  general  laws  up  to  mechanics  as  the 
most  abstract  system,  so  history  can  consider  in 
different  stages  the  will-relations  of  more  and 
more  comprehensive  character.  The  most  ab- 
stract view  is  represented  by  the  so-called  phi- 
losophy of  history,  which  aims  at  understanding 
the  history  of  the  world  as  determined  by  one 
decision  of  the  will.  In  this  spirit  the  concep- 
tion of  original  sin  in  the  theological  systems  of 
the  Middle  Ages  was  in  the  field  of  historical 
thinking  perhaps  not  less  marvelous  than  the 
conception  o£  atomistic  mechanism  in  the  realm 
of  natural  science.  The  fact  that  Adam  did  not 
exist  in  reality  is  as  little  an  objection  to  the 
mediseval  construction  as  the  fact  that  no  atom 
can  really  exist  militates  against  our  atomism ; 
both  reconstructions  of  reality  fill  merely  ideal 
places  as  necessary  goals  of  thought. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  same  way  that 
mechanics  does  not  lower  the  importance  of 
special  natural  sciences,  no  all-embracing  theory 


216  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

of  the  history  of  man  can  interfere  with  the 
importance  of  the  special  historic  disciplines 
down  to  the  biographies  of  single  personalities. 
But  even  the  biography  has  to  work  in  the  same 
direction  as  the  most  abstract  philosophy  of 
history,  in  the  direction  of  general  connection. 
The  real  biography  written  in  an  historical  spirit 
shows  in  the  individual  the  attitudes  towards  the 
demands  and  suggestions  which  make  the  history 
of  mankind ;  the  single  man  becomes  thus  the 
crossing  point  of  all  the  political,  technical,  reli- 
gious, sesthetical,  intellectual  impulses  of  his 
time,  and  he  is  thus  by  the  will-attitudes  which 
constitute  his  personality  connected  with  the 
whole  universe  of  will-acts.  As  the  astronomer 
in  his  calculations  describes  the  one  curve  of  a 
star  as  the  combination  of  a  large  number  of 
impulses  by  attraction,  and  thus  brings  the  star 
in  relation  to  the  whole  firmament,  so  the  his- 
torical biographer  reconstructs  the  one  life  as  a 
system  of  single  attitudes  towards  an  endless 
multitude  of  demands  and  suggestions.  It  is  a 
complete  transformation  in  the  service  of  connec- 
tion. The  man's  life  can  be  told  otherwise  also : 
the  life  as  he  feels  it  as  a  personal  experience ; 
so  also  do  we  learn  to  understand  the  man,  but 
we  have  then  poetry  and  not  history ;  it  is  isola- 
tion and  not  connection.  And  if,  instead,  we 
describe  and  explain  his  life  as  a  set  of  ideas, 
feelings,  emotions,  and  volitions  which  arose  in 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   HISTORY  217 

his  psychophysical  system  from  birth  to  death, 
then  we  have  again  a  transformation  in  the  ser- 
vice of  connection,  but  this  time  for  the  causal 
connection  of  objects,  not  for  the  teleological 
connection  of  subjects ;  it  is  again  not  history, 
but  psychology. 

VIII 

The  separation  of  the  material  of  the  two 
sciences  is  thus  simple  and  clear ;  there  can 
never  be  a  doubt  about  the  line  of  demarcation, 
as  there  is  no  psychophysical  object  in  the  world 
—  from  the  sensations  of  a  frog  up  to  the  ideas 
of  Newton,  the  emotions  of  Byron,  and  the  voli" 
tions  of  Cromwell  —  which  is  not  a  suitable 
object  of  psychology,  and  as  there  is  no  sub- 
jective individual  act  which  cannot  be  linked 
into  the  endless  teleological  system  of  history. 
A  division  of  material,  as  if  a  social  psychology, 
for  instance,  were  to  deal  with  the  psychical 
processes  of  the  unknown  masses,  while  history 
were  to  deal  with  the  psychical  processes  of  the 
well-known  men,  is  an  absurdity.  Not  less  mis- 
leading would  be  an  antithesis  between  savagery 
and  civilization.  From  a  psychophysical  stand- 
point such  a  line  is  secondary;  the  organism 
which  adds  outer  appendages  to  his  body  to 
make  the  psychophysical  functions  more  effec- 
tive has  reached  merely  a  higher  stage  of  bio- 
logical development,  but  is  not  different  in  priu' 


218  PSYCHOLOGY  AND   HISTORY 

ciple  from  the  lower  type  in  which  nature  does 
not  provide  for  detachable  acquisitions  of  the 
organism.  The  animal  which  runs  with  loco- 
motives, sees  with  microscopes,  hears  with  tele- 
phones, makes  gestures  of  expression  through 
newspapers,  attacks  through  cannons,  and  remem- 
bers through  hbraries,  stands  above  the  savage  as 
-^  dog  stands  above  a  jelly-fish,  but  it  is  theoreti- 
'?ally  nothing  new ;  it  is  a  more  complicated  pro- 
duct of  nature  which,  therefore,  offers  a  more 
difficult  problem  to  the  descriptions  and  expla- 
nations of  psychology  and  physiology,  but  does 
not  as  such  become  material  for  history.  And 
still  another  line  of  separation  must  disappear; 
the  fight  between  the  "materialists"  and  the 
"  idealists  "  of  the  recent  economical  schools  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  doubleness  of  psycho- 
logical naturalism  and  real  historical  aspect.  If 
the  materialists  claim  that  every  occurrence 
amons;  men  is  the  direct  or  indirect  effect  of 
economical  causes,  while  the  idealists  consider 
other  causes  still  which  seem  to  them  independent 
of  material  conditions,  for  instance,  religious 
and  patriotic  emotion  or  ambition  and  love,  both 
sides  stand  fully  on  the  ground  of  psychology 
and  outside  of  history.  Those  emotions  of 
practical  idealism  are  in  question  only  as  psycho- 
physical causes,  and  are  thus  material  merely  for 
a  causal  system.  In  the  system  of  history  exists 
no  causality. 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   HISTORY  219 

Here  is  the  point  where  even  the  historians 
themselves  are  inclined  to  compromises  which, 
at  least  in  principle,  must  be  rejected.  Whether 
or  not  practically  quite  interesting  reports  of 
periods  of  civilization  can  be  written  by  mixing 
the  two  attitudes  is  secondary.  Historians,  we 
know,  produced  in  earlier  times  their  deepest 
effects  by  mixing  history  with  ethics,  but  the 
philosopher  at  least  must  be  clear  that  ethics  is 
not  history,  and  he  ought  to  be  still  less  in  doubt 
that  a  causally  explaining  social  psychology  is 
not  history  either.  As  soon  as  it  is  acknow- 
ledged that  we  have,  on  the  one  side,  an  interest 
to  consider  human  life  as  an  object  and  thus  to 
describe  and  to  explain  it,  and  that  we  have,  on 
the  other  side,  a  logical  aim  to  understand 
human  life  as  subjective  acts  which  can  be  inter- 
preted and  hnked  together  only  by  will-attitudes, 
then  we  must  have  the  energy  to  keep  the  two 
systems  separated.  Each  is  logically  valuable, 
each  is  therefore  true,  but  if  confused  both 
become  logically  useless. 

We  can  say  that  Socrates  remained  in  the 
prison  because  his  knee  muscles  were  contracted 
in  a  sitting  position  and  not  working  to  effect 
his  escape,  and  that  these  muscle-processes  took 
place  because  certain  psychophysical  ideas,  emo- 
tions, and  volitions,  all  composed  of  elementary 
sensations,  occurred  in  his  brain,  and  that  they, 
again,  were  the  effects  of  all  the  causes  which 


220  PSYCHOLOGY  AND   HISTORY 

sense  stimulations  and  dispositions,  associations 
and  inhibitions,  physiological  and  climatic  influ- 
ences, produced  in  that  organism.  And  we  can 
say,  on  the  other  hand,  that  Socrates  remained 
in  the  prison  because  he  decided  to  be  obedient 
to  the  laws  of  Athens  unto  death.  This  obedi- 
ence means,  then,  not  a  psychophysical  process, 
but  a  will-attitude  which  we  must  understand 
by  feeling  it  and  living  through  it,  an  attitude 
which  we  cannot  analyze,  but  which  we  inter- 
pret and  appreciate.  The  first  is  a  psychological 
description ;  the  second  is  an  historical  interpre- 
tation. Both  are  true.  They  are,  to  be  sure, 
not  equally  valuable  for  science,  as  that  particu- 
lar psychophysical  process  is  not  more  important 
for  the  understanding  of  the  psychological  sys- 
tem than  millions  of  other  emotions  in  unknown 
men,  while  that  will-attitude  influenced  by  its 
demand  the  acknowledging  will  of  twenty  cen- 
turies, and  is  thus  most  important  in  the  his- 
torical system.  And  yet  both  are  equally  true, 
while  they  blend  into  an  absurdity  if  we  say  that 
those  psychophysical  states  in  the  brain  of 
Socrates  were  the  objects  which  inspired  the  will 
of  his  pupils  and  were  suggestive  through  two 
thousand  years. 

A  history  which  interprets  subjectively  and 
understands  their  purposes  out  of  the  deeds  of 
men  relinquishes,  indeed,  its  only  aim  if  it  coor- 
dinates these  teleological  relations  with  the  causal 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  221 

explanation  of  human  happenings  from  cHmatic 
and  geographical,  technical  and  economical, 
physiological  and  pathological  influences.  The 
subject  which  is  determined  by  purposes  is  free  ; 
the  action  which  is  the  effect  of  causes  is  unfree. 
In  the  unfree  world  there  cannot  be  any  action 
which  must  not  be  understood  causally,  and  we 
have  no  right  to  stop  at  any  point  in  our  expla- 
nation ;  the  unexplained  action  means  only  an 
unsolved  problem  which  is  in  no  way  solved  if 
we  seek  for  its  subjective  meaning  instead  of  its 
elements  and  causes.  In  the  world  of  freedom, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  would  be  meaningless  to 
ask  for  cause,  as  the  objects  then  come  in  ques- 
tion merely  as  objects  for  the  wiUing  subjects 
and  not  as  reaUties  for  themselves.  The  realm 
of  freedom  is  not  made  up  of  oases  in  the  world 
of  necessity  ;  the  reality  of  history  is  not  spread 
here  and  there  over  the  field  of  nature,  but  lies 
fully  outside  of  its  limits.  The  antithesis  be- 
tween psychology  and  history  is  thus  not  law 
and  single  event,  but  causality  and  freedom,  and 
this  difference  is  the  logical  result  of  the  onto- 
logical  difference  of  the  material,  the  one  deal- 
ing with  objects,  the  other  with  subjects.  Both 
go  methodologically  the  same  way,  considering 
the  single  facts  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
general  fact,  and  both  transforming  the  dis' 
connected  material  until  a  perfectly  connected 
system   is   reached.      But   because   objects   are 


222  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

understood  by  describing  and  explaining  them, 
while  subjects  are  understood  by  interpreting 
and  appreciating  them,  the  connection  of  the 
one  system  must  be  causal,  that  of  the  other 
system  teleological,  and  the  general  fact  in  the 
one  field  must  be  a  law  and  in  the  other  field 
the  will  relation  of  importance.  As  every  sub- 
jective act  can  be  replaced  by  a  psychophy- 
sical function  of  an  organism  in  the  world  of 
objects,  and  as  every  object  can  be  understood 
as  a  value  for  a  will,  the  whole  reality  can  be 
brought  without  any  possible  remainder  under 
the  one  aspect  as  well  as  under  the  other.  His- 
tory, in  the  real  historical  spirit,  then  need  no 
longer  fear  that  the  progress  of  psychology  can 
inhibit  its  functions,  and  the  psychologist  need 
not  feel  discouraged  that  his  psychological  laws 
of  history  appear  so  utterly  trivial  to  the  his- 
torian. That  which  is  important  for  psychology, 
that  which  is  fit  for  constructing  connections 
between  psychological  objects,  has  the  privilege 
of  being  indifferent  for  the  historian,  that  is,  of 
being  unfit  to  link  subjective  will  -  attitudes. 
Psychology  and  history  cannot  help  each  other 
and  cannot  interfere  with  each  other  as  long  at 
they  consistently  stick  to  their  own  aims.  Each 
of  them  has  thus  unlimited  opportunities  for 
development.  The  processions  of  the  great 
psychologists  from  Aristotle  to  Herbart,  and 
that  of  the  great  historians  from  Thucydides  to 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  223 

Macaulay,  can  both  have  for  the  future  an  un- 
limited number  of  followers  without  any  quarrel, 
in  spite  of  the  naturalistic  claims  of  our  age, 
which  for  a  while  was  under  the  illusion  that  all 
is  understood  when  all  is  explained,  and  that  the 
historians  had  better  become  psychologists. 

IX 

As  soon  as  the  difference  of  the  two  stand- 
points is  recognized,  light  falls  on  all  the  special 
characteristics  of  the  two  sciences.  Now  we 
understand  why  history  stands  so  much  nearer 
to  real  life  than  psychology.  Not,  as  it  was 
suggested,  because  history  deals  with  single  facts 
and  psychology  with  general  facts,  but  because 
psychology  deals  with  objects  which  are  thought 
as  independent  of  the  subject,  while  in  reality 
and  so  in  history  the  material  is  acknowledged 
only  in  relation  to  willing  subjects.  In  real  life 
we  are  subjects  which  must  be  understood  but 
not  described  ;  psychology  starts  thus  at  once 
-with  a  material  which  in  its  singleness  is  already 
farther  away  from  reality  than  the  material  with 
which  history  deals.  Now  we  understand  also 
why  the  substance  of  history  has  value  for  us, 
while  the  objects  of  psychology  and  of  all  natu- 
ralistic sciences  are  emotionally  indifferent.  That 
is  not,  as  it  was  suggested,  because  the  single 
facts  are  important  for  us  and  the  general  facts 
indifferent;  no,  it  is  because  the  psychological 


224  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

objects,  the  contents  of  consciousness,  are  thought 
as  cut  loose  from  the  will  and  thus  no  lonorer 
possible  objects  for  appreciation,  while  the  his- 
torical objects  are  thought  as  in  their  relation  to 
the  attitudes  of  the  will.  Now  we  understand 
also  under  which  principle  the  historian  selects 
his  material.  If  we  accept  the  view  that  all 
single  facts  belong  to  history  as  such,  it  is  arbi- 
trariness to  chronicle  Napoleon's  battles  and 
state  acts  but  not  his  flirtations  and  breakfasts, 
while  now  we  understand  how  it  is  that  this 
selection  means  the  most  essential  part  of  the 
historian's  work,  as  it  is  the  way  to  transform 
the  reality  into  a  system  of  teleological  connec- 
tions, thus  dropping  more  and  more  the  will-acts 
which  have  no  teleological  importance  for  will- 
attitudes  of  other  subjects.  Now  we  understand 
also  why  the  language  of  the  historian  has  so 
much  similarity  with  that  of  the  poet.  The  his- 
torian, we  have  seen,  has  aims  which  are  directly 
antagonistic  to  those  of  the  poet,  as  the  poet 
isolates,  while  the  historian,  like  every  scientist, 
connects  his  material.  But  the  materials  them- 
selves, the  subjective  acts,  are  common  to  the 
poet  and  the  historian.  Where  the  psychologist 
encourages  the  reader  to  take  the  attitude  of  the 
objectively  perceiving  observer,  the  poet  and  the 
historian  speak  of  facts  which  can  be  understood 
only  by  interpretation  and  inner  imitation  ;  they 
cannot  be  described  by  enumerating  their  ele- 


PSTCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  225 

ments ;  they  must  be  suggested  and  reach  some- 
how the  willing  subject  which  enters  into  the 
subjective  attitude  of  the  other.  Thus  the  means 
of  both  may  approximate  to  each  other.  The 
poet  and  the  historian  may  use  the  same  meth- 
ods of  suggestion  to  reinforce  in  the  reader  the 
subjectifying  attitude  which  is  the  presupposition 
for  the  understanding  of  the  isolated  will-acts  in 
the  work  of  poetry  and  the  connected  will-acts 
in  the  work  of  history,  while  the  psychologist 
has  to  adapt  even  his  style  and  his  presentation 
to  the  service  of  his  objectifying  aim. 

But  we  now  understand  and  see  in  a  new  hght 
also  the  relations  of  the  psychological  and  his- 
torical sciences  to  the  normative  doctrines,  to 
ethics,  logic,  and  aesthetics.  As  long  as  history 
appears  merely  as  a  part  of  psychology  or  as  long 
as  the  one  is  given  over  to  single  facts,  the  other 
to  laws,  all  the  normative  sciences  stand  without 
any  inner  relation  to  any  empirical  science,  those 
speaking  of  duties,  these  of  facts.  For  us  the 
relation  takes  a  very  different  form.  We  have 
seen  that  all  the  historical  sciences  are  systems 
of  individual  will-relations  and  nothing  else.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  have  found  that  duty  never 
means  anything  but  our  own  over-individual  will- 
act.  All  the  normative  sciences  are  thus  the 
systematic  connections  of  our  over-individual 
will-attitudes,  our  will-attitudes  aiming  toward 
morality  and  truth  and  beauty  and  religion.    As 


226  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

the  over-individual  will  is,  of  course,  thought  as 
independent  of  the  individual  subject,  the  con- 
nection which  is  sought  cannot  lead  as  it  did  in 
history  from  subject  to  subject ;  as  all  subjects 
are  presupposed  as  agreeing  in  their  over-indi- 
vidual acknowledgment,  the  connection,  the  sci- 
entific aim  can  then  lie  here  merely  in  the  sys- 
tematic connection  of  our  own  over-individual 
purposes  and  their  interpretation.  Here,  too, 
a  transformation  becomes  necessary  in  the  in- 
terest of  connection  ;  each  single  will-attitude 
must  be  linked  into  this  teleological  system  and 
must  thus  be  transformed  till  it  represents  a 
crossing  point  of  all  the  ethical,  aesthetical,  re- 
ligious, and  logical  impulses  and  demands.  The 
normative  sciences  and  history  stand  thus  in  the 
nearest  relation  to  each  other ;  both  are  trans- 
formations of  will-acts  in  the  service  of  teleo- 
logical connection,  only  the  one  reconstructs  and 
systematizes  the  individual  will-acts  in  us,  the 
other  the  over-individual  will-acts. 

The  relation  between  these  two  groups  of  sci- 
ences, the  historical  and  the  normative  ones,  is 
thus  perfectly  parallel  to  the  relation  between 
the  psychological  sciences  and  the  physical  sci- 
ences, of  which  the  one  systematizes  the  indi- 
vidual objects  and  the  other  the  over-individual 
objects.  The  proportion  —  history  stands  to 
the  normative  doctrines  as  psychology  stands  to 
physics  —  is,  indeed,  true  in  every  respect  and  in 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY  227 

every  consequence.  We  may  consider  here  as 
our  last  word  only  one  of  them.  The  historical 
development  of  the  naturalistic  sciences  shows 
the  continuous  tendency  to  take  more  and  more 
of  the  properties  of  the  physical  object  into  the 
psychological  object,  that  is,  to  show  that  the 
apparent  over-individual  qualities  of  the  thing 
are  qualities  which  depend  upon  the  individual ; 
color  and  sound,  smell  and  taste,  go  over  from 
the  physical  thing  into  the  idea,  and  thus  the 
whole  manifoldness  of  our  experience  moves  over 
into  the  sphere  of  ideas.  In  exactly  the  same 
way  and  led  by  the  same  methodological  mo- 
tives, history  takes  more  and  more  of  the  nor- 
mative duties  over  into  its  own  field,  and  shows 
how  the  special  duties,  the  logical  beliefs,  ethical 
convictions,  aesthetical  demands  and  religious  pos- 
tulates are  the  results  of  individual  attitudes  under 
the  suggestion  of  the  individual  groups  of  will- 
influences.  The  absolute  duties  and  beliefs  and 
obligations  and  truths  seem  thus  lost  in  our  life 
as  the  colors  and  sounds  and  smells  are  lost  for 
the  physical  objects.  But  the  parallelism  holds 
for  the  end-point  of  this  development  too.  We 
must  deprive  the  physical  object  of  its  colors 
and  sounds,  but  we  cannot  give  up  the  truth 
that  there  is  a  physical  object  nevertheless,  as 
the  quantitative  reality  to  which  we  project,  with 
objective  truth,  our  sensations  and  ideas  ;  all  the 
naturalistic  sciences  would  be  destroyed  if   we 


228  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  HISTORY 

"Were  to  give  up  this  realistic  conviction  of  physics. 
In  the  same  way  we  may  take  into  the  individual 
all  the  single  over-individual  special  duties  o£ 
special  nations  and  ages  and  social  groups,  but 
the  reality  of  the  background  of  projection  we 
cannot  give  up.  Whatever  history  teaches,  the 
postulate  of  the  reality  of  duties,  of  absolute 
values,  stands  firm.  The  absolute  duties  may 
be  abstract  and  deprived  of  color  and  sound  as 
is  the  world  of  physics,  but  they  stand  and  must 
last  hke  the  physical  universe,  and  whoever  in 
striving  towards  truth  denies  the  reality  of  abso- 
lute values  and  gives  up  the  belief  in  morality 
and  the  belief  in  logic,  thus  destroys  and  under- 
mines his  own  endeavor  to  find  the  truth  as 
logical  thinker  and  to  stand  for  the  truth  as 
ethical  man. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 


Mysticism  —  that  is,  the  belief  in  supernatural 
connections  in  the  physical  and  psychical  worlds 
—  has  always  been  an  interesting  object  of  ob- 
servation for  the  psychologist.  When  the  hu- 
man mind  believes  that  it  has  reached  the  realm 
unseen,  psychology  can  analyze  its  inner  experi- 
ences and  follow  up  the  devious  paths  from 
empirical  knowledge  to  the  knowing  of  the 
mysterious  Unknowable.  From  this  point  of 
view,  psychology  finds  a  wonderful  field  of  work 
in  the  mystical  systems  from  the  earliest  Hindoo 
speculation  to  the  spirituaHstic  doctrines  of  to- 
day ;  and  its  interest  in  mysticism  is  the  deeper 
and  more  spontaneous,  the  more  complicated 
the  motives  which  push  the  soul  beyond  the 
limits  of  natural  insight.  Religious  emotion  and 
hysterical  rapture,  mysterious  fears  and  super- 
stitious habits,  pathological  disturbances  and 
surprising  experiences,  abnormal  credulity  and 
dissatisfaction  with  science,  and  very  many  other 
true  and  half-true  impulses  come  in  question. 
Even  the  pseudo-mystic,  who  deceives  the  world 


230  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

because  he  knows  that  the  world  wishes  to  be 
deceived,  becomes  an  attractive  object  for  psy- 
chological analysis ;  fanaticism  regarding  the 
church  and  greed  for  bread  and  butter,  hysteri- 
cal pleasure  in  irritating  tricks  and  sensuous 
pleasure  in  power  over  others,  are  here  among 
the  most  characteristic  features.  What  a  differ- 
ence between  the  neoplatonistic  philosopher,  who 
sinks  into  the  Absolute  and  finds  the  super- 
natural reality  by  his  feeling  of  unity  with  God, 
and  the  modern  member  of  a  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research,  who  discovers  the  supernatural 
world  by  his  mathematical  calculations  on  the 
probable  error  in  telepathic  answers  about  play- 
/  ing-cards !  What  a  difference  between  the 
mediaeval  monk,  who  becomes  convinced  of  the 
mystical  sphere  because  the  Virgin  appears  to 
him  in  the  clouds,  and  the  modern  scholar,  who 
is  converted  because  a  pathological  woman  is 
able  to  chat  about  his  personal  secrets  at  the 
rate  of  twenty  francs  a  sitting !  Yet  psychology 
recognizes  the  common  features  and  understands 
the  mental  laws  which  make  mysticism  a  never- 
failing  element  of  the  social  consciousness ;  the 
wilder  its  eccentricities,  the  more  interesting  the 
psychological  material. 

But  the  claims  of  mysticism  suggest  to  the 
psychologist  another  attitude  less  peaceable  than 
that  of  the  observer,  the  attitude  of  a  rival.  If 
mystics  believed  only  that  heavy  chairs  some- 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  231 

times  fly  through  the  air,  that  invisible  bells 
ring,  and  that  objects  disappear  into  the  fourth 
dimension,  they  would  have  to  fight  it  out  with 
the  physicists,  but  psychology  would  not  inter- 
fere. K,  inspired  by  occult  advisers,  they  pro- 
posed a  new  metaphysical  theory  of  the  ultimate 
substratum  of  the  physical  universe,  the  philoso- 
phers might  stand  up  as  indignant  competitors, 
but  the  psychologists,  again,  would  have  nothing 
to  do  with  it.  The  physicians  may  dispute  with 
the  mystics  whether  the  waters  of  Lourdes  are 
helpful,  whether  the  comets  are  causes  of  pesti- 
lence, and  whether  men  die  on  account  of  being 
thirteenth  at  table.  There  is,  perhaps,  not  a  single 
science,  from  geometry  to  theology,  which  has 
not  its  private  conflicts  with  the  mystical  doc- 
trines ;  but  psychology  has  no  reason  to  enter 
the  quarrel  so  long  as  the  mystic  does  not  under- 
take to  answer  psychological  questions.  In  this 
field,  however,  mysticism  has  never  shown  too 
much  modesty.  It  has  at  all  times,  by  prefer- 
ence, rioted  in  the  proclamation  of  mental  facts 
which  did  not  fit  into  the  descriptions  and  ex- 
planations of  a  sober  empirical  psychology.  If 
mysticism  is  right  with  its  old  claims,  psy- 
chology, even  with  its  newest  discoveries,  is 
wrong ;  and  thus  arises  the  question.  What  has 
the  psychologist  to  say  of  the  claims  of  mysti- 
cism concerning  mental  processes  and  the  laws 
of  mental  action  ? 


232  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

These  claims  have  been  different  at  different 
periods  and  in  different  nations,  and  are  still  so 
divergent  that  no  scientist  can  contend  more 
sharply  with  the  mystical  creeds  than  they 
contend  with  one  another  in  the  different  sets 
to-day.  The  telepathists  annihilate  the  theoso- 
phists,  and  the  spiritualists  belittle  the  telepa- 
thists ;  and  when  the  Christian  scientists  and 
metaphysical  healers  on  the  one  side,  the  mind 
curers  and  faith  curers  on  the  other  side,  have 
spoken  of  each  other,  there  remain  few  abusive 
words  at  the  disposal  of  us  outsiders.  The 
average  mystic  of  to-day  is  a  man  of  high  logical 
ambitions.  He  looks  with  contempt  on  the 
gypsy  who  reads  your  character  from  the 
grounds  in  a  coffee-cup,  and  smiles  over  the  as- 
trological belief  that  the  position  of  the  stars  in 
the  hour  of  your  birth  has  decided  your  success 
in  love.  The  medical  remedies  which  have  to  be 
cooked  at  midnight  at  the  churchyard  gate  are 
in  discredit ;  and  as  we  live  in  an  enlightened 
age,  it  even  appears  doubtful  whether  the 
witches  of  early  time  were  really  under  Satanic 
influences,  as  their  witchcraft  can  now  be  "  ex- 
plained "  by  the  telepathic  action  of  mediums, 
by  malicious  spirits  and  materializations.  The 
requirements  of  mysticism  thus  shrink  to  the 
following  main  demands.  First,  the  human 
mind  must  sometimes  be  able  to  perceive  in  an 
incomprehensible  way  the  ideas  and  thoughts  of 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  233 

others.  By  gradual  approaches,  this  telepathic 
talent  seems  also  connected  with  the  power  to 
have  knowledge  of  distant  physical  occurrences  ; 
and  if  our  concessions  have  reached  this  point, 
we  ought  not  to  strain  at  the  little  addendum, 
the  vision  of  the  future.  In  all  cases  of  this 
kind  the  exceptional  talents  of  the  soul  are  re- 
ceptive and  passive.  A  second  group  of  mysti- 
cal powers  may  be  formed  by  the  corresponding 
active  influences.  In  an  inconceivable  way,  it 
is  assumed,  the  human  mind  can  control  the 
thoughts  and  actions  of  others  ;  and  here,  again, 
small  steps  lead  soon  to  greater  and  greater  mys- 
teries. The  mental  influence  may  reach  not 
only  the  soul,  but  also  the  body  of  the  other 
person,  and  may  restore  his  disturbed  health ; 
even  a  child  may  produce  such  metaphysical 
heaHng  of  consumption  and  heart  trouble,  can- 
cer and  broken  legs.  The  mind  which  by  "  love  '* 
brings  together  the  fragments  of  a  neighbor's 
broken  bones  ought  surely  to  have  no  serious 
difficulties  with  the  movements  of  inorgfanic 
bodies :  at  the  bidding  of  such  a  mind,  tables 
fly  to  the  ceiling,  and  a  little  stick  in  the  hands 
of  a  weak  woman  cannot  be  moved  by  the 
strongest  man.  A  third  group  refers  to  the 
functions  of  a  deeper  self,  which  is  usually  hid- 
den under  our  regular  personality.  In  the  most 
different  trance  states,  in  crystal  vision  and  auto- 
matic writing,  this  mysterious  self  appears,  and 


234  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

remembers  all  that  we  have  forgotten,  knows 
many  things  which  we  never  knew,  writes  and 
acts  without  our  control,  and  shows  connections 
which  go  far  beyond  our  powers,  and  mostly 
even  beyond  our  tastes.  Nearly  related  to  these 
facts  is  a  fourth  circle  of  mystical  doctrines, 
which  deal  with  the  psychical  deeds  of  the  hu- 
man spirit  after  the  earthly  death.  According 
to  these  doctrines,  the  spirits  are  ready  to  enter 
into  communication  with  living  men  by  the  help 
of  mediums,  with  or  without  materiahzation,  by 
noises  or  by  table  tilting,  by  slate  drawing,  and 
recently  even  by  typewriting.  This  creed  be- 
comes, of  course,  the  starting-point  for  many 
denominational  divergences. 

II 

The  most  natural  question  is.  How  far  can  the 
regular  empirical  psychology  acknowledge  the 
claimed  phenomena  ?  Where  is  the  exact  limit 
which  the  scientific  psychologist  is  unwilhng  to 
pass  ?  He  does  not  discredit  perception  of  voices 
from  far  distances  if  a  telephone  is  included, 
and  he  does  not  doubt  that  one  person  may  have 
influence  over  another  in  a  hundred  ways.  We 
must  carefully  consider  where  the  mystery  be- 
gins. The  attitude  of  common  sense,  however, 
must  not  be  allowed  to  dictate  this  line  of  de- 
marcation ;  otherwise  the  psychologist  would  be 
bound  to  denounce  aU  facts  which  are  rare  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  235 

surprising  to  the  naive  consciousness,  or  incapa- 
ble of  explanation  to  the  dilettante.  Let  us 
remember  that  it  counts  for  little  whether  a  fact 
occurs  once  a  day  or  once  in  a  century,  and  that 
many  facts  of  physiological  and  pathological 
psychology  must  appear  to  the  naive  mind  much 
more  surprising  and  alarming  than  do  the  pre- 
tensions of  the  spiritualist.  It  seems  much 
simpler  and  more  natural  to  grant  that  a  little 
word  or  figure  may  wander  by  mere  thought 
transference  from  one's  mind  into  the  mind  of  a 
bystander,  than  to  believe  in  the  startling  fea- 
tures of  the  more  complicated  cases  of  hypno- 
tism and  somnambulism,  hysteria  and  insanity, 
all  of  which  find  legitimate  place  in  the  system 
of  modern  psychology. 

If  we  begin  with  the  first  two  groups  of  the 
claims  of  mystics,  —  the  passive  reception  of 
outer  psychical  and  physical  events,  and  the 
active  influence  upon  other  souls  and  organisms, 
—  we  can  easily  state  the  general  principle  which 
here  controls  the  psychological  attitude,  though 
it  may  often  be  far  from  easy  to  follow  up  the 
principle  in  specific  cases.  The  psychologist  in- 
sists that  every  perception  of  occurrences  outside 
of  one's  own  body  and  every  influence  beyond 
one's  own  organism  must  be  intermediated  by  an 
uninterrupted  chain  of  physical  processes.  The 
justice  of  this  apparently  arbitrary  decision  may 
be  examined  later ;  at  first  we  ask  only  for  its 


236  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  MYSTICISM 

precise  meaning  and  its  consequences.  With  re- 
gard to  perception,  the  Hrait  is  certainly  sharply 
drawn,  and  yet  it  may  be  often  difficult  to  recog- 
nize it.  We  perceive  only  objects  which  directly 
or  indirectly  stimulate  our  physical  sense  organs, 
and  which  stimulate  them  by  physical  means. 
The  perception  of  a  man's  body  is  therefore  the 
primary  process ;  the  perception  of  his  thoughts 
and  feelings  is  secondary,  as  they  must  be  some- 
how physically  expressed  in  order  to  act  as 
stimuli  for  the  sense  org-ans. 

In  two  directions  the  case  may  become  abnor- 
mal :  the  transmitter  or  the  receiver  may  differ 
from  the  usual  type  of  communicating  persons. 
The  transmitter  himself,  for  instance,  may  not 
be  conscious  that  he  expresses  his  ideas,  or, 
better,  that  his  ideas  discharge  themselves  in 
perceptible  physical  processes.  He  may  blush 
without  knowing  it,  and  thus  betray  his  inner 
shame;  or  he  may  contract  the  muscles  which 
turn  his  body  toward  the  outer  point  he  is  think- 
ing of;  or  his  breathing  or  pulse  may  change 
through  his  excitement  over  a  question ;  and  the 
receiver  may  be  in  a  situation  to  become  aware 
of  these  unintended  signals  of  inner  states. 
Here  belongs  the  well-known  stage  piece  of 
muscle  reading,  which  is  often  carelessly  con- 
fused with  real  telepathy.  It  certainly  is  one  of 
the  easily  explicable  forms  of  psychophysical 
communication.      Here  belong  as  well   all  the 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  237 

slight  hints  by  which  nervous  persons  make  it 
possible  again  and  again  for  confessed  impostors 
to  play  the  roles  of  successful  mind  readers. 
The  pseudo-mediums  need  only  to  seek  for  in- 
formation in  desultory  chatting,  which,  under 
the  high  tension  of  expectancy,  suffices  to  bring 
about  all  kinds  of  unintended  expressions  which 
show  the  clever  juggler  the  way. 

The  receiver  of  the  physical  impressions,  also, 
may  differ  from  the  average.  We  think  pri- 
marily of  the  possibility  that  the  receiving  in- 
struments —  that  is,  the  sense  organs  or  the 
sensory  brain  parts  and  nerve  paths  —  may  have 
become  abnormally  sensitive,  by  training  or  by 
pathological  variations.  Through  the  touch 
sensation  of  his  face  the  blind  man  perceives 
distant  obstacles  in  his  way,  to  which  our  un- 
trained central  sense  apparatus  is  unresponsive ; 
but  that  does  not  conflict  with  the  propositions 
of  psychology,  and  is  not  mystical.  We  know 
that  the  threshold  for  just  perceptible  sensations 
is  often  surprisingly  lowered  for  hypnotic  and 
hysterical  subjects,  who  can  thus  perceive  faint 
impressions  and  signals  which  must  escape  the 
normal  consciousness.  Even  if  a  man  were  so 
gifted  as  to  discriminate  smells  like  a  dog,  or  to 
see  the  ultra-violet  rays,  or  to  perceive  solids  by 
the  Roentgen  rays,  or  if  he  had  a  sense  organ  for 
electric  currents  more  sensitive  than  the  finest 
galvanometer,  the  psychologist  would  have  no 


238  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTIC7,SM 

reason  for  skepticism  so  long  as  the  physical 
nature  of  the  transmission  from  the  outer  object 
to  the  brain  is  admitted.  Other  variations  in 
the  receiver  may  be  determined  by  his  state  of 
attention.  An  outer  stimulus  may  reach  his 
brain  by  the  door  of  his  senses  without  producing 
an  apperceived  idea  at  the  moment,  but  not 
without  influence  on  his  later  feelings  and  ac- 
tions ;  a  molecular  alteration  of  the  brain  dispo- 
sition may  last  and  work  as  after  effect  of  the 
stimulation  without  having  attracted  the  atten- 
tion at  all.  This  occurrence,  also,  which  in 
narrow  limits  is  familiar  and  usual  enough,  may 
be  pathologically  exaggerated,  and  may  then,  as 
for  instance  in  hysterical  cases,  produce  surpris- 
ing results,  if  the  subject  shows  undoubted 
knowledge  of  facts  which  he  could  never  have 
acquired  consciously ;  but  this,  likewise,  nowhere 
transcends  the  psychological  probabilities. 

Still  more  complicated,  perhaps,  are  the  varia- 
tions in  the  active  power  of  the  mind,  within  the 
limits  which  psychologists  willingly  acknowledge, 
or  at  least  ought  to  acknowledge.  Our  thoughts 
and  volitions  certainly  have  influence  on  other 
minds ;  we  should  not  speak  a  word  nor  write  a 
line  if  we  did  not  believe  that.  But  again  we 
consider  the  psychical  effects  which  we  produce 
in  others  as  intermediated  by  physical  processes. 
We  stimulate  the  optic  and  acoustic  and  tactual 
nerves  of  others  with  the  purpose  of  reaching 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  239 

their  central  nervous  system,  and  of  producing 
there  the  ideas  with  which  we  started.  These 
ideas  must  then  work  for  themselves  ;  they  stir 
up  their  associations  and  awaken  their  inhibi- 
tions, but  the  outsider  cannot  add  anything  fur- 
ther. He  can  only  communicate  the  ideas,  and 
let  them  work  in  the  receiver  from  a  psychologi- 
cal point  of  view ;  that  is  all  the  influence  we 
have  on  our  fellow  men. 

Ill 

There  is  one  complication  of  this  trivial  pro- 
cess of  communication  which  seems  to  touch  the 
borderland  of  mysticism,  —  hypnotic  sugges- 
tion. The  hypnotized  subject  must  do  what- 
ever the  hypnotizer  suggests  to  him.  Here  the 
will  of  one  mind  seems  to  have  an  incompre- 
hensible influence  over  the  other,  and  as  if  it 
were  only  a  short  way  from  the  hypnotic  rap- 
port to  the  influences  of  mystical  character; 
that  is,  of  a  kind  which  excludes  the  possibility 
of  physical  intermediation.  The  resemblance  is 
deceptive,  however ;  even  the  most  complicated 
case  of  hypnotic  influence  is  based  only  on  ele- 
mentary actions  which  occur  every  moment  in 
our  normal  mental  life.  If  we  want  some  one 
to  do  a  thing,  we  communicate  our  wish  to  him, 
trusting  that  the  idea  proposed  wiU  discharge 
itself  in  the  desired  motor  action.  That  cor- 
responds fully  to   our  general   knowledge   that 


240  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

every  sensory  mental  state  is  at  the  same  time 
the  starting-point  of  motor  impulses.  If  we  say 
to  our  neighbor,  "  Please  pass  me  the  cream," 
we  take  for  granted  that  the  communicated  idea 
will  discharge  itself  in  the  little  action.  But  if 
we  say,  "Please  jump  out  of  the  window,"  the 
result  will  not  be  the  same.  The  communicated 
idea  by  itself  alone  would  have  the  effect  of 
producing  the  action  demanded,  but  it  awakens 
by  the  regular  associative  mechanism  a  set  of 
ideas  on  the  folly  of  the  demand  and  the  danger 
of  the  undertaking,  and  all  these  associations  are 
starting-points  for  antagonistic  impulses  which 
are  finally  reinforced  by  the  whole  personality : 
the  proposed  action  is  thus  inhibited,  and  the 
man  does  not  jump.  He  would  jump  if  the  an- 
tagonistic idea  could  be  kept  down ;  and  in  this 
case  the  foolish  action  would  be  just  as  neces- 
sarily determined  by  the  conditions  and  just  as 
natural  as  the  reasonable  one.  But  we  all  know 
that  this  power  of  ideas  to  overcome  antagonistic 
associations  is  quite  a  normal  thing,  active  in  the 
most  varying  measure  everywhere  in  our  normal 
mental  life. 

We  call  an  idea  which  thus  checks  the  an- 
tagonistic one  a  suggestion,  and  we  may  be  sure 
that  no  education  or  art,  no  politics  or  church 
life,  would  be  possible  without  such  suggestions. 
The  idea  may  become  a  suggestion  by  the  way 
in  which  it  is  presented,  but  it  may  also  acquire 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   MYSTICISM  241 

this  character  by  the  disposition  of  the  receiver. 
We  know  there  are  stubborn  men  who  contra- 
dict every  proposition,  and  there  are  others  who 
are  open  to  every  new  idea  without  inner  resist- 
ance, and  ready  to  believe  everything  they  hear, 
or  even  everything  they  see  in  print.  They 
are  thus  more  at  the  mercy  o£  suggestions ;  we 
say  they  show  greater  suggestibility.  On  the 
other  hand,  every  man's  suggestibility  is  vari- 
able ;  it  is  increased  by  fear  and  other  emotions, 
by  alcohol  and  other  nervines,  and  under  special 
conditions  it  may  reach  a  pathological  intensity. 
This  abnormal  degree  of  suggestibility,  in  which 
the  antagonistic  associations  of  the  suggested 
ideas  are  more  or  less  completely  inhibited,  is  the 
mental  state  we  call  hypnotism.  If  this  state 
of  increased  suggestibility  is  reached,  the  outer 
action  w^hich  fulfills  the  proposed  suggestion 
becomes,  through  the  regular  psychophysical 
mechanism,  unavoidable.  The  final  results,  to 
be  sure,  may  appear  surprisingly  different  from 
the  normal  actions  of  the  personality,  but  even 
the  most  absurd  hypnotic  action  is  based  on  these 
simple  psychological  principles.  As,  theoreti- 
cally, everybody  can  hypnotize  everybody,  it  is 
obvious  that  no  special  mystical  power  need  be 
invoked  at  this  point ;  and  even  if  we  induce 
the  hypnotized  subject  to  do  a  criminal  action,  it 
is  no  mysterious  power  with  which  we  overcome 
his   honesty,    but   a   combination   of    processes 


242  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

which  are  neither  clearer  nor  more  obscure  than 
normal  attention  and  association.  There  is  not 
the  sHghtest  reason  to  consider  hypnotism,  with 
all  its  ramifications,  as  in  any  degree  mystical 
because  of  its  weird  and  alarming  results.  We 
may  not  understand  every  detail  as  yet,  but 
nothing  need  suggest  any  doubt  that  other  prin- 
ciples are  involved  than  those  in  daily  mental 
activity.  Hypnotism  is  free  from  responsibility 
for  mystical  theories.  Mysticism,  on  the  other 
hand,  cannot  hope  to  pass  through  the  entrance 
door  of  science  on  account  of  its  superficial  simi- 
larity to  some  hypnotic  cases. 

Practically,  the  two  may  be  mixed  till  they 
are  indistinguishable.  In  spiritualistic  seances 
the  plain  hypnotic  phenomena  are  not  seldom 
used  to  smooth  the  way  for  the  telepathic  mys- 
ticism, as  criticism  of  the  latter  will  be  less  sharp 
if  the  first  part  of  the  performance  is  undoubt- 
edly reliable.  If  there  is  no  physical  interme- 
diation between  the  transmitter  and  the  receiver, 
thought  transference  remains  mystical,  and  whe- 
ther the  receiver  is  hypnotized  or  not  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  case.  No  change  is  involved 
by  the  belief  of  the  subject,  no  matter  how  sin- 
cere, that  he  is  under  such  mystical  influence 
from  far  distances.  Only  a  short  time  ago  I 
had  such  a  case  under  my  observation.  There 
came  to  me,  late  at  night,  a  stranger,  in  wildest 
despair,  resolved  to  commit  suicide  that  night  if 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  243 

I  could  not  help  him.  He  had  been  a  physi- 
cian, but  had  given  up  his  practice  because  his 
brother,  on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean,  hated 
him  and  had  him  under  his  telepathic  influence, 
troubhng  him  from  over  the  sea  with  voices 
which  mocked  him  and  with  impulses  to  foolish 
actions.  He  had  not  slept  nor  had  he  eaten 
anything  for  several  days,  and  the  only  chance 
for  life  he  saw  was  that  a  new  hypnotic  influ- 
ence might  overpower  the  mystical  hypnotic 
forces.  I  soon  found  the  source  of  his  trouble. 
In  treating  himself  for  a  wound  he  had  misused 
cocaine  in  an  absurd  way,  and  the  hallucination 
of  voices  was  the  chief  symptom  of  his  cocain- 
ism.  These  products  of  his  poisoned  brain 
had  sometimes  reference  to  his  brother  in  Europe, 
and  thus  the  telepathic  idea  grew  in  him  and 
permeated  his  whole  life.  I  hypnotized  him, 
and  suggested  to  him  with  success  to  have  sleep 
and  food  and  a  smaller  dose  of  cocaine.  Then 
I  hypnotized  him  daily  for  six  weeks.  After 
ten  days  he  gave  up  cocaine  entirely,  after  three 
weeks  the  voices  disappeared,  and  after  that  the 
other  symptoms  faded  away.  It  was  not,  however, 
until  the  end  that  the  telepathic  theory  was  ex- 
ploded. Even  when  the  voices  had  gone,  he 
felt  for  a  while  that  his  movements  were  con- 
trolled from  over  the  ocean ;  and  after  six 
weeks,  when  I  had  made  him  quite  well  again, 
he  laughed  over  his  telepathic  absurdities,  but 


244  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

assured  me  that  if  these  sensations  came  again 
he  should  be  unable,  even  in  full  health,  to 
resist  the  mystical  interpretation,  so  vividly  had 
he  felt  the  distant  influences. 

IV 

This  case  may  bring  us  to  another  main  group 
of  personal  influences,  the  therapeutical  ones. 
The  man  of  common  sense  is  more  suspicious  of 
fraud  in  this  field  than  anywhere  else,  and  yet 
the  psychologist  must  here  concede  as  possible  a 
greater  part  of  the  claimed  facts  than  in  the 
other  domains  of  mysticism.  He  will  reject  a 
good  deal,  it  is  true,  and  in  acknowledging  the 
rest  of  the  facts  he  will  not  think  of  committing 
himself  to  the  theories ;  yet  he  must  feel  sorry 
that  truth  demands  from  him  the  acknowledg- 
ment of  anything,  not  because  he  thinks  himself 
bound  to  advertise  the  regular  practicing  phy- 
sician, but  because  he  knows  how  these  facts 
carry  with  them  a  flock  of  contagious  confus- 
ing ideas.  Seen  from  the  standpoint  of  the  psy- 
chologist, the  line  between  the  possible  and 
the  mysterious  healing  influences  of  personality 
is  fairly  though  not  absolutely  sharp.  We  have 
seen  that  every  normal  psychophysical  state  has 
the  tendency  to  go  over  into  peripheral  bodily 
processes.  We  have  so  far  noticed  only  the  pro- 
cesses in  the  voluntary  muscles,  the  so-called 
actions,  and  we  have   found   that  there  is  no 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  246 

special  power  involved  and  that  no  mystery  need 
be  invoked,  but  that  every  idea  discharges  itself 
in  an  action  provided  the  antagonistic  ideas  are 
checked.  But  the  motor  nerves  and  muscular 
apparatus  represent  only  a  part  of  the  cen- 
tral and  centrifugal  system  which  can  be  stimu- 
lated by  sensory  processes.  The  researches  of 
physiology  have  fully  proved  that  our  involun- 
tary muscles  and  our  blood-vessels,  our  glands 
and  our  internal  organs,  are  under  the  influ- 
ence of  our  central  system.  Our  whole  body  in 
every  instant  resounds  in  every  part  to  the  vari- 
ations of  our  brain  activity,  and  the  normal 
functioning  of  our  organism  depends  in  a  large 
deffree  on  the  ri2:ht  work  of  these  central  stimu- 
lations.  Are  they  absent  or  inhibited,  some- 
thing must  go  wrong ;  and  if  the  central  stimu- 
lus can  be  enforced,  if  the  antagonistic  inhibition 
can  be  checked,  the  right  tension  and  the  normal 
functioning  must  return  as  necessarily  and  as 
naturally  as  the  suggested  action  must  occur 
when  the  contradicting  ideas  are  removed.  We 
have  seen  that  hypnotism  is  nothing  but  a  psy- 
chophysical state  of  increased  suggestibility; 
that  is,  a  state  in  which  the  suggested  ideas  find 
less  resistance  than  in  normal  Hfe.  If  the  hyp- 
notized patient  receives  suggestions  which  refer 
to  those  physiological  functions  which  are  de- 
pendent upon  the  central  nervous  system,  the 
change   and   the   readjustment   of   the  organic 


246  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

functions  by  the  removal  of  false  inhibitions  and 
by  the  reinforcement  of  useful  central  stimula- 
tions are  certainly  no  more  obscure  than  the 
action  of  antipyrine  and  phenacetine.  Even 
that  which  may  be  still  obscure  in  the  action  of 
the  suggestions  can  be  only  a  matter  of  details, 
not  of  principles. 

There  are  two  methods  of  suggestion  open : 
a  more  active  and  talkative  way,  which  turns 
the  subject's  attention  to  the  desired  point  by 
direct  suggestions,  and  a  more  passive  and  silent 
way,  which  attempts  a  general  quieting  of  the 
mind,  in  which  a  new  balance  of  impulses  may 
be  inaugurated,  and  the  desire  for  normal  func- 
tions may  work  itself  up  to  increased  influence. 
Every  good  physician  makes  use  of  these  two 
means  to  increase  the  effectiveness  of  his  reme- 
dies. At  the  right  time,  they  are  almost  a 
substitute  for  all  other  aid,  and  in  the  mystical 
therapy  of  all  periods  through  four  thousand 
years  they  have  developed  a  high  technique. 
To-day,  the  passive  method  of  indirect  sugges- 
tion is  the  vehicle  of  the  Christian  scientists  and 
metaphysical  healers ;  the  active  way  of  more 
direct  suggestion  belongs  to  the  mind  curers  and 
mental  healers. 

Much  of  the  success  of  both  methods  depends, 
of  course,  upon  the  ability  of  the  transmitter  to 
make  the  suggestions  effective.  His  personal 
appearance  and  way  of  talking,  his  voice  and 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND  MYSTICISM  247 

temperament,  must  be  persuasive,  and  his  reputa- 
tion and  authority  must  reinforce  the  expectancy 
■which  prepares  the  inhibitions.  Teachers  and 
lawyers  and  ministers  strengthen  their  influence 
by  these  silent  servants  of  a  dominant  mind. 
Many  of  these  personal  qualities  can  be  replaced, 
to  be  sure,  by  merely  mechanical  tricks  which 
can  be  imitated  and  taught.  Our  mystical 
schools  bring  this  technique  to  external  virtuos- 
ity. But  still  more  important  are  the  antecedent 
conditions  in  the  mind  of  the  patient.  Whoever 
has  seen  the  patients  in  the  chnic  of  a  famous 
hypnotist  (half  hypnotized  as  soon  as  they  pass 
the  door  of  the  hospital)  knows  how  the  fascina- 
tion of  the  attention  by  belief — by  any  belief — 
works  favorably  for  the  increase  of  suggestibility ; 
so  that  the  smallest  additional  intruder,  perhaps 
the  sensation  of  half-darkened  light,  of  soft 
touch,  of  muscle  strain  in  the  eyes,  is  sufficient 
to  bring  about  the  new  equilibrium  of  psycho- 
physical impulses.  The  most  vulgar  and  trivial 
IbeHef  will  answer  ;  the  most  absurd  superstition 
can  bring  success,  as  everything  depends  upon 
the  intensity  of  the  subject's  submission ;  and 
the  more  pitiable  the  intellectual  powers  of  a 
creature,  the  greater  may  be  his  chance  of  a  cure 
by  idiotic  manipulations.  To  deny  this  in  the 
interest  of  science  would  be  unscientific. 

The  most  deep-seated  form  of  belief  is  reli- 
gious faith,  and  there  cannot  be  the  slightest 


248  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  MYSTICISM 

doubt  that  religious  emotion,  from  the  lowest 
fetichism  to  the  highest  protestantism,  has  always 
been  fertile  soil  for  tlierapeutical  suggestions. 
What  we  have  called  the  active  method  appeals 
to  the  subjective  faith  with  direct  words ;  the 
passive  method  awakens  the  same  fascination 
indirectly,  lulling  to  sleep  the  antagonistic 
impulses  by  a  feeling  that  the  mind  of  the 
transmitter  has  reached  by  prayer  and  love  a 
supernatural  unity  with  the  mind  of  the  patient. 
We  must  not  forget  that  it  is  not  the  solemn 
value  of  the  religious  revelation,  nor  the  ethical 
and  metaphysical  bearing  of  its  objects,  which 
brings  success,  but  solely  the  depth  of  the  emo- 
tion. To  murmur  the  Greek  alphabet  with  the 
touching  intonation  and  gesture  of  supplication 
is  just  as  strengthening  for  the  health  as  the 
sublimest  prayer ;  and  for  the  man  who  believes 
in  the  metaphysical  cure,  it  may  be  quite  unim- 
portant whether  the  love  curer  at  his  bedside 
thinks  of  the  psychical  Absolute  or  of  the  spring 
hat  she  will  buy  with  the  fee  for  her  metaphy- 
sical healing.  From  the  psychological  point  of 
view,  the  direct  method  of  healing  by  faith  and 
the  indirect  method  of  healing  by  love  are  thus 
almost  identical ;  both  are  confined  to  the  nar- 
row limits  within  which  the  nervous  system 
influences  the  pathological  processes ;  but  in 
these  limits  both  have  some  chances  of  a  transi- 
tory success,  and   both  are  Hable  to  the  same 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  249 

illusions  on  the  part  of  sincere  healers  and  to  the 
same  humbug  on  the  part  of  impostors. 


Our  review  has  sought  to  examine  the  two 
large  groups  of  facts  which  refer  to  the  influ- 
ence of  mind  on  mind,  and  to  separate  in  both, 
in  those  of  active  influence  and  in  those  of 
passive  reception,  the  psychological  possibilities 
from  those  claims  which  the  psychologist  at  first 
rejects.  There  are  two  groups  more  which  we 
must  sift,  —  the  facts  which  lead  to  the  theory 
of  double  consciousness,  and  the  spiritualistic 
facts  which  refer  to  the  communication  of  the 
living  with  the  souls  of  the  dead.  In  the  former 
group  there  is  little  fault  to  be  found  with  the 
facts ;  only  the  theory  is  misleading.  In  the 
latter  group,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  diffi- 
cult to  decide  whether  the  claims  for  the  facts 
cr  the  attempts  at  theories  are  the  more  objec- 
tionable. The  phenomena  which  suggest  that  a 
deeper  personality  lies  hidden  under  the  experi- 
ences of  our  surface  personality  are  to-day  gen- 
erally familiar  and  scientifically  weU  studied. 
Typical  of  these  phenomena  are  the  interesting 
facts  of  automatic  writing,  apart  from  the  at- 
tempts to  give  them  a  spiritualistic  interpreta- 
tion. Our  hands  may  be  brought  to  write 
truths  of  which  we  are  not  conscious,  and  to 
answer  questions  which  we  do  not  perceive ;  and 


250  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  MYSTICISM 

these  writings  which  we  do  not  control  may 
clearly  belong  to  a  special  personality,  with  its 
own  memory  and  its  own  wit  and  temper.  Many 
similar  facts  which  do  not  necessarily  point  in 
the  same  direction  presuppose  hysterical  disturb- 
ances. It  is  true  that  the  idea  of  a  separated 
subject  of  consciousness  offers  itself  to  a  super- 
ficial view  as  the  simplest  hypothesis,  and  the 
acceptance  of  this  hypothesis  gives  a  foothold 
for  the  most  compHcated  mystical  theories.  But 
there  are  two  groups  of  facts  which  we  must 
keep  in  mind.  First,  we  know  that  all  our  com- 
plicated useful  actions  which  are  acquired  under 
the  control  of  the  intellectual  attention,  as 
walking  and  eating,  speaking  and  reading  and 
writing,  become  slowly  automatic,  yet  nobody 
thinks  of  putting  them  under  the  care  of  a 
deeper  personality ;  we  make  the  right  move- 
ment in  speaking  without  consciously  intending 
tke  special  tongue  and  lip  movements,  because 
the  lower  nerve  centres  steadily  unburden  the 
higher  ones,  and  more  and  more  easily  trans- 
form the  stimulus  into  the  useful  motor  dis- 
charge. Even  in  the  most  compUcated  cases, 
therefore,  the  unconscious  production  of  appar- 
ently chosen  and  adapted  actions  is  no  proof 
whatever  that  the  whole  process  was  not  a  merely 
physiological  one.  Secondly,  a  manifoldness  of 
psychological  personalities  is  in  no  way  identical 
with  a  plurality  of   subjects  of   consciousness. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  251 

Every  one  of  us  finds  in  his  consciousness  a 
bundle  of  social  personalities.  We  are  different 
men  in  the  office  and  in  the  family  circle,  in  the 
political  meeting  and  in  the  theatre ;  one  does 
not  care  for  the  others,  and  may  even  ignore 
them ;  each  has  his  own  memory  connection  and 
his  own  impulses.  But  they  do  not  represent 
different  subjects  of  consciousness,  different 
groups  of  objects  alternating  in  the  same  sub- 
ject. Of  course  these  various  empirical  person- 
alities have  always  some  elements  in  common, 
by  which  we  can  easily  bridge  over  from  one  to 
the  other,  and  remember  our  office  anger  in 
front  of  the  stage  of  the  theatre.  No  change 
in  principle  occurs  when,  by  an  abnormal  brain 
process,  these  paths  of  association  and  connec- 
tion are  blocked,  and  one  personality  remains 
without  relations  with  the  other.  In  such  a  case 
several  personalities  alternate,  each  consisting  of 
a  set  of  associations  and  impulses  without  remem- 
brance of  the  others.  The  student  of  hypnotism 
and  hysteria  is  familiar  with  such  phenomena. 
These  personalities  alternate  in  consciousness  in 
the  same  way  that  groups  of  ideas  succeed  one 
another ;  but  the  subject  which  is  the  bearer  of 
all  these  personalities  remains  always  the  same, 
and  the  hypothesis  that  this  subject  itself 
changes  when  the  content  of  the  social  person- 
ality changes  is  thus  without  support  in  the 
psychological  interpretations  of  the  normal  idea 


252  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

of  personality.  The  real  source  of  these  theo- 
ries as  to  a  deeper  self  and  a  double  conscious- 
ness lies,  indeed,  not  in  the  psychological  facts, 
but  in  motives  of  a  very  different  character. 
We  shall  turn  presently  to  these  more  hidden 
impulses,  as  they  "will  show  us  the  real  springs 
of  mysticism ;  but  we  must  first  glance  at  our 
fourth  and  last  group  of  claims,  —  the  wonder* 
of  spiritualism. 

So  long  as  we  consider  spiritualism  only  from 
the  point  of  view  of  its  agreement  with  the  sys- 
tem of  scientific  psychology,  the  discussion  may 
be  extremely  short,  for  one  sweeping  word  is 
sufficient.  There  are  no  subtle  discriminations 
necessary,  as  in  the  other  fields :  the  psycholo- 
gist rejects  everything  without  exception.  We 
have  here  not  the  slightest  relation  to  philo- 
sophical spiritualism,  either  to  that  of  the  Berke- 
leian  type  or  to  that  of  Fichte.  We  are  not  on 
the  height  of  philosophical  thinking,  but  on  the 
low  ground  of  observation  and  explanation  of 
empirical  facts.  The  question  is  not  whether 
the  substance  of  the  real  world  is  spiritual ;  it  is 
only  whether  departed  spirits  enter  into  com- 
munication with  living  men  by  mediums  and 
by  incarnation.  The  scientist  does  not  admit  a 
compromise :  with  regard  to  this  he  flatly  denies 
the  possibility.  Of  course  he  does  not  say  that 
all  the  claims  are  founded  on  fraud.  He  does 
not  deny  that  sincere  persons  have  frequently 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  253 

believed,  through  hallucinations,  and  still  oftener 
through  illusions,  that  they  saw  the  apparitions 
of  departed  friends  and  heard  their  voices.  The 
psychologist  has  no  dearth  of  explanations  for 
this  product  of  the  psychophysical  mechanism. 
In  the  same  way,  he  need  not  doubt  that  many 
of  the  mediums  really  believe  themselves  to  be 
under  the  control  of  departed  souls  ;  for  this 
also  exactly  fits  many  well-known  facts  of  nerv- 
ous disturbance.  But  the  facts  as  they  are 
claimed  do  not  exist,  and  never  will  exist,  and 
no  debate  makes  the  situation  better. 

VI 

Our  short  survey  of  the  wide  domain  of  mys- 
ticism is  finished.  We  have  seen  what  part  of 
its  claims  can  be  acknowledged  by  psychology, 
and  what  must  be  rejected.  We  have  seen  that 
many  of  those  occurrences  which  appear  mys- 
terious and  uncanny  to  the  naive  mind  are  easily 
understood  from  a  scientific  point  of  view,  and 
are  often  separated  by  an  impassable  chasm  from 
happenings  which  on  the  surface  look  quite 
similar.  We  have  seen  especially  that  hypnotism 
and  hysteria,  muscle  reading  and  hypersesthesia, 
alternation  of  personality  and  the  therapeutic  in- 
fluence of  psychophysical  inhibitions,  hallucina- 
tions and  illusions,  and  other  mental  states  which 
psychology  understands  just  as  well  as  it  does 
the   normal   associations   and    feelings,    explain 


254  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

many  of  the  observed  events,  and  bring  them 
from  the  domain  of  mysticism  into  the  sphere  of 
causally  necessary  processes.  And  yet  all  this 
is  only  a  preamble  for  our  real  discussion.  We 
have  given  decisions,  but  not  arguments ;  we 
have  shown  that  psychology  is  able  to  explain 
many  of  the  facts,  but  we  have  not  shown  as 
yet  why  we  have  the  right  to  reject  other  so- 
called  facts  and  to  deny  their  possibihty ;  and 
everything  must  at  last  depend  upon  this  right 
alone. 

The  modern  mystic,  if  he  is  ready  to  follow 
us  thus  far,  would  not  find  the  slightest  argu- 
ment against  his  position  in  any  of  our  preced- 
ing points.  He  would  say :  "  I  accept  your 
psychophysical  explanations  for  the  facts  which 
you  acknowledge ;  with  regard  to  the  others,  I 
see  only  that  you  are  unable  to  understand  them, 
but  that  gives  you  no  right  to  deny  them. 
There  are  many  facts  which  are  still  puzzles  for 
science.  History  must  make  us  modest,  show- 
ing that  again  and  again  the  truth  was  at  first 
ridiculed  and  the  deeper  insight  derided.  These 
very  phenomena  of  hypnotism  and  automatism 
and  hysteria  were  denied  in  their  reality  only  a 
few  generations  ago.  Science  must  give  every- 
thing fair  play,  and  a  refusal  even  to  examine 
the  facts  is  unworthy  of  real  science.  It  is  nar- 
rowness and  stubbornness  to  reject  a  fact  be- 
cause it  does  not  fit  into  the  scientific  system  cf 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  255 

to-day,  instead  of  striving  toward  the  better  sys- 
tem of  to-morrow,  which  will  have  room  for  all 
the  phenomena ;  and  this  the  more  if  these  facts 
are  of  vast  importance,  involving  the  immor- 
tality and  the  absolute  unity  of  aU  minds,  the 
spiritual  harmony  of  the  universe,  and  the  very 
deepest  powers  of  man." 

This  is  the  old  text,  indeed,  preached  from  so 
often,  and  sometimes  in  so  brilliant  and  fascina- 
ting a  style  that  even  the  best  men  have  lowered 
the  sword.  Yet  it  is  wrong  and  dangerous  from 
beginning  to  end,  and  has  endlessly  more  harm 
in  it  than  a  superficial  view  reveals,  as  it  is  in 
its  last  consequences  not  only  the  death  of  real 
science,  but  worse,  —  the  death  of  real  idealism. 

First  a  word  about  the  so-called  facts.  Our 
newspapers,  magazines,  and  books  are  full  to 
overflowing  of  the  reports  of  happenings  which 
no  science  can  explain,  and  which  may  over- 
whelm the  uncritical  mind  by  their  sheer  bulk. 
But  whoever  stops  to  think  for  a  moment  how 
the  psychological  conditions  favor  and  almost 
enforce  the  weedlike  growth  of  mysterious  sto- 
ries will  at  least  agree  that  a  hve  criticism  must 
sift  the  tales,  even  if  they  are  backed  by  the  au- 
thority of  a  most  trustworthy  sailor  or  a  most 
excellent  servant  girl.  If  the  glaring  light  of 
criticism  is  thrown  on  this  twilight  literature,  the 
effect  is  often  surprising.  Some  of  the  "  facts  " 
prove    to  be  simply  untrue,  having   grown   up 


256  PSrCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

through  gossip  and  desire  for  excitement,  through 
fear  and  curiosity,  through  misunderstandings 
and  imagination.  Another  set  of  the  "  facts  " 
turns  out  to  be  true,  but  not  mysterious ;  being 
merely  a  checkered  field  of  abnormal  mental 
phenomena,  such  as  hypnotism,  somnambulism, 
hysteria,  insanity,  hypersesthesia,  automatic  ac- 
tion, and  so  forth.  Another  large  group  is  based 
on  conscious  or  unconscious  fraud,  from  the 
mildest  form  down  through  a  long  scale  to  the 
boldest  spiritualistic  forgery.  If  we  take  away 
these  three  large  groups,  there  is  a  remainder 
which  may  deserve  discussion  as  to  its  interpre- 
tation. Here  belong  the  chance  occurrences 
which  appear  alarmingly  surprising  if  taken  in 
isolation,  but  quite  natural  if  considered  as  mem- 
bers of  a  long  series,  giving  account  of  all  the 
cases  in  which  the  surprising  coincidences  did 
not  occur.  The  recent  statistics  of  apparitions 
and  hallucinations  show  clearly  the  difficulty  of 
finding  always  the  right  basis  for  such  calcula- 
tion of  mathematical  probabilities.  Here  belong, 
further,  the  illusions  of  memory,  by  which  pre- 
sent experiments  are  projected  into  the  past,  or 
past  experiences  are  transformed  by  present  sen- 
sations; the  surprising  coincidences  illustrated 
by  recent  experiments,  which  are  produced  by 
the  concordance  of  associations  and  other  simi- 
larities of  mental  dispositions ;  and  the  illusions 
of  perception  which  allow  us  to  hear  and  see 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  257 

whatever  we   expect  or  whatever  is   suggested 
to  us. 

If  we  are  ready  to  make  full  use  of  every 
means  of  possible  explanation,  there  remains 
hardly  an  instance  where  it  is  impossible  to  tear 
aside  the  veil  of  mystery,  and  to  explain  psy- 
chologically either  the  occurrences  of  the  facts 
themselves,  or  the  development  of  the  erroneous 
report  about  them.  Even  when  long  series  of 
careful  experiments  on  thought  transference  and 
similar  problems  were  made,  the  cautious  papers 
discreetly  reported  in  most  cases,  not  that  a 
proof  was  furnished,  but  only  that  the  evidence 
seemed  to  point  in  a  certain  direction.  And 
even  the  most  ardent  believer  in  telepathy,  Mr. 
Podmore,  concedes  that  "  each  particular  case  is 
susceptible  of  more  or  less  adequate  explanation 
by  some  well-known  cause."  Mr.  Podmore  con- 
siders it  absurd  to  accumulate  the  strained  and 
complicated  explanations  which  thus  become  ne- 
cessary, instead  of  accepting  the  simple  whole- 
sale interpretation  that  telepathy  took  place. 
But  with  the  same  right  we  might  say  that  in 
an  endless  number  of  instances  the  lowest  ani- 
mals and  plants  rise  from  inorganic  substances  ; 
each  case  taken  separately  could  be  explained  by 
biologists  from  procreation,  but  since  such  expla- 
nation would  involve  an  accumulation  of  com- 
plicated theories  about  the  conditions  of  life  for 
the  lowest  animals,  it  would  be  much  simpler  to 
believe  in  generatio  equivoca. 


258  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

Our  presupposition  was  that  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  claims  are  false.  Even  the  cham- 
pions of  mysticism  are  to-day  ready  to  admit  that 
the  temptations  and  chances  for  deception  are 
discouragingly  numerous.  Not  only  is  there  an 
abundance  of  money-making  schemes  which  fit 
well  the  natural  credulity  and  suggestibility  of 
the  public  at  large.  Some  lie  and  cheat  merely 
for  art's  sake,  getting  pleasure  from  the  fact  that 
their  fiction  becomes  real  through  the  belief  that 
it  awakes,  and  some  do  the  same  merely  in  boy- 
ish trickery.  Some  elaborate  their  inventions  to 
make  themselves  interesting,  and  some  feast  in 
the  power  they  thus  gain  over  men.  Some 
begin  by  consciously  embellishing  the  slender 
facts,  and  end  with  a  sincere  belief  in  their  own 
superstructure ;  and  others,  through  hysterical 
excitement,  are  unaware  of  their  own  cheating. 
Add  to  these  causes  the  incorrectness  with  which 
most  men  observe  and  report  on  matters  in 
which  their  feelings  are  interested,  and  the  mis- 
erable lack  of  the  feeling  of  responsibility  with 
which  average  men  and  average  papers  put  forth 
their  wild  tales.  Consider  how  again  and  again 
the  honored  leaders  of  mystical  movements  have 
been  unmasked  as  cheap  impostors  and  their 
admired  wonders  recognized  as  vulgar  tricks, 
how  telepathic  performances  have  been  reduced 
to  a  simple  signaling  by  breathing  or  noises, 
and  how  seldom  disbelievers  have  interrupted  a 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  259 

materialization  seance  without  putting  their  hands 
on  a  provision  of  beards  and  draperies.  Think 
of  all  this,  and  the  supposed  facts  dwindle  more 
and  more. 

At  this  point  of  the  discussion  the  friends  of 
mysticism  like  to  go  over  to  a  more  personal 
attack.  They  say,  "  How  do  you  dare  to  pre- 
suppose credulity  and  suggestibility  in  the  ob- 
server, and  intended  or  unintended  tricks  and 
dishonesty  in  the  performer,  when  you  have 
never  taken  part  in  such  experiments,  and  when 
some  brilliant  scholars  have  examined  them  and 
found  no  fraud  ?  "  To  such  personal  reproach 
I  answer  with  personal  facts.  It  is  true  I  have 
never  taken  part  in  a  telepathic  experiment  or  in 
a  spiritualistic  seance.  It  is  not  a  nervous  dis- 
like of  abnormalities  which  has  kept  me  away, 
as  I  have  devoted  much  time  to  the  study  of 
hypnotism  and  insanity.  The  experiences  of 
some  of  my  friends,  however,  made  me  cautious 
from  the  beginning  ;  they  had  spent  much 
energy  and  time  and  money  on  such  mysteries, 
and  had  come  to  the  conviction  that  all  was 
humbug.  Once,  I  confess,  I  wavered  in  my 
decision.  In  Europe  I  received  a  telegram  from 
two  famous  telepathists  asking  me  to  come 
immediately  to  a  small  town  where  they  had  dis- 
covered a  medium  of  extraordinary  powers.  It 
required  fifteen  hours'  traveling,  and  I  hesitated ; 
but  the  report  was  so  inspiring  that  I  finally 


260  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

packed  my  trunks.  Just  then  came  a  second 
message  with  the  laconic  words,  "  All  fraud." 
Since  that  time  I  do  not  take  the  trouble  to 
pack.     I  wait  quietly  for  the  second  message. 

Why  do  I  avoid  these  seances  ?  It  is  not 
because  I  am  afraid  that  they  would  shake  my 
theoretical  views  and  convince  me  of  mysticism, 
but  because  I  consider  it  undignified  to  visit 
such  performances,  as  one  attends  a  variety 
show,  for  amusement  only,  without  attempting 
to  explain  them,  and  because  I  know  that  I 
should  be  the  last  man  to  see  through  the 
scheme  and  discover  the  trick.  I  should  cer- 
tainly have  been  deceived  by  Madame  Blavatsky, 
the  theosophist,  and  by  Miss  Paladino,  the  me- 
dium. I  am  only  a  psychologist,  not  a  detective. 
More  than  that,  by  my  whole  training  I  am  ab- 
solutely spoiled  for  the  business  of  the  detective. 
The  names  of  great  scientists,  like  Zoellner, 
Richet,  Crookes,  and  many  others,  do  not  im- 
pose on  me  in  the  least ;  for  their  daily  work  in 
scientific  laboratories  was  a  continuous  training 
of  an  instinctive  confidence  in  the  honesty  of 
their  cooperators.  I  do  not  know  another  pro- 
fession in  which  the  suspicion  of  possible  fraud 
becomes  so  systematically  inhibited  as  it  does  in 
that  of  the  scientist.  He  ought  to  be  at  once 
dismissed  from  the  jury,  and  a  prestidigitator 
substituted.  Whether  I  personally  take  part  in 
such  meetings  or  not  is,  therefore,  without  any 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  261 

consequences;  I  take  it  for  granted  from  the 
start  that  wherever  there  was  fraud  in  the  play, 
I  should  have  been  cheated  like  my  brethren. 
The  only  thing  that  the  other  side  can  reason- 
ably demand  from  us  is  that  we  be  fully  ac- 
quainted with  their  claims  and  with  the  evidence 
they  furnish  in  their  writings.  I  confess  I  have 
not  had  quite  a  good  conscience  in  this  respect ; 
I  had  not  really  studied  all  the  recorded  Phan- 
tasms of  the  Living  and  all  the  Proceedings  of 
the  Societies  for  Psychical  Research,  and  I  am 
afraid  I  had  forgotten  to  cut  the  leaves  of  some  of 
the  occult  magazines  on  my  own  shelves.  Now, 
however,  my  conscience  is  fully  disburdened.  I 
used  —  or  ought  I  to  say,  misused  ?  —  my  last 
summer  vacation  in  working  through  more  than 
a  hundred  volumes  of  the  so-called  evidence.  I 
passed  through  a  whole  series  of  feehngs.  In- 
deed, I  had  at  first  a  feeling  of  mysterious 
excitement  from  all  those  uncanny  stories,  but 
that  changed  into  a  deep  aesthetical  and  ethical 
disgust,  which  flattened  finally  into  the  feeling 
that  there  was  about  me  an  endless  desert  of 
absolute  stupidity.  I,  for  one,  am  to-day  far 
more  skeptical  than  before  I  was  driven  to  ex- 
amine the  evidence ;  I  have  studied  the  proofs, 
and  now  feel  sure  of  what  before  I  only  sus- 
pected, —  that  they  do  not  prove  anything  ;  and 
if  we  condemn  science  on  such  testimony,  we  do 
worse  than  those  who  condemned  the  witches  and 


262  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

vampires.  In  short,  I  believe  that  the  facts,  if 
they  are  examined  critically,  are  never  incapable 
of  a  scientific  explanation ;  and  yet  even  this  is 
not  the  central  point  of  the  question.  I  must 
deny  that  the  battle  is  waged  over  the  facts 
which  science  understands  and  those  which  it 
does  not  understand. 

VII 

No  scientist  in  the  world  feels  uncomfortable 
over  the  confession  that  there  are  many  —  end- 
lessly many  —  things  in  the  world  which  we  do 
not  know;  no  sane  man  dreams  that  the  last 
day  of  scientific  progress  has  yet  come,  and  that 
every  problem  has  been  solved.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  springs  of  scientific  enthusiasm  lie  in 
the  conviction  that  we  stand  only  at  the  beginning 
of  knowledge,  and  that  every  day  may  unveil 
new  elements  of  the  universe.  Even  physio- 
logical psychology,  which  seems  so  conceited  in 
the  face  of  mysticism,  admits  how  meagre  is  the 
knowledge  it  has  so  far  gleaned.  Almost  every 
important  question  of  our  science  is  still  un- 
settled, and  yet  that  has  never  discouraged  us  in 
our  work.  The  physicist  and  the  astronomer, 
the  chemist  and  the  botanist,  the  physiologist 
and  the  psychologist,  work  steadily,  with  the 
conviction  that  there  are  many  facts  which  they 
do  not  know,  like  the  Roentgen  rays  ten  years 
ago,  and  that  many  facts  are  not  fully  under- 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND  MYSTICISM  263 

Stood,  like  the  Roentgen  rays  at  present.  If  the 
mystical  facts  were  merely  processes  which  we  do 
not  understand  to-day,  but  which  we  may  under- 
stand to-morrow,  there  would  not  be  the  slightest 
occasion  for  a  serious  dispute.  But  the  situa- 
tion is  very  different.  The  antithesis  is  not 
between  the  facts  we  can  explain  and  the  facts 
we  cannot  explain,  and  for  which  we  seek  an 
explanation  of  the  same  order.  No;  it  is  be- 
tween the  facts  which  are  now  explicable  by 
causal  laws,  or  may  be  so  in  any  possible  future, 
and  those  facts  which  are  acknowledged  as  in 
principle  outside  of  the  necessary  causal  connec- 
tions, and  bound  together  by  their  values  for 
our  personal  feelings  instead  of  by  mechanical 
laws.  As  Professor  James  puts  it  excellently  : 
It  is  the  difference  between  the  personal  emo- 
tional and  the  impersonal  mechanical  thinking, 
between  the  romantic  and  the  rationalistic  views 
of  the  world.  Here  lies  the  root  of  the  problem, 
and  here  centres  our  whole  interest.  Indeed,  all 
that  is  claimed  by  the  mystic  as  such  means,  not 
that  the  causal  connections  of  the  world  found 
BO  far  are  still  incomplete  and  must  be  supple- 
mented by  others,  but  that  the  blanks  in  the 
causal  connections  allow  us  glimpses  of  another 
world  behind,  —  an  uncausal  emotional  world 
which  shines  through  the  vulgar  world  of  me- 
chanics. 

If  the  astronomer  calculated  the  movement  of 


264  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

a  star  from  the  causally  working  forces,  he  might 
come  to  the  hypothesis  that  there  are  centres  of 
attraction  existing  which  we  have  not  yet  discov- 
ered :  it  was  thus  Leverrier  discovered  Neptune. 
But  his  boldest  theories  operate  only  with  quan- 
tities of  the  same  order,  with  substances  and 
forces  which  come  under  the  categories  of  the 
mechanical  world.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he 
considered  some  emotional  view,  perhaps  the 
sesthetical  one  that  the  star  followed  this  curve 
because  it  is  more  beautiful,  as  indeed  an  older 
astronomy  did ;  or  the  ethical  one  that  this 
movement  of  the  star  occurred  because  it  served 
to  make  the  moral  progress  of  men  possible, 
while  the  causal  movement  would  have  thrown 
the  earth  into  the  sun;  or  the  religious  one 
that  the  angels  chose  to  pull  the  star  this  way 
rather  than  that ;  or  the  poetical  one  that  the 
star  was  obliged  to  move  just  so  in  order  to 
delight  the  heart  on  a  clear  evening  by  its  spar- 
kling, —  in  none  of  these  cases  would  he  be 
doubtful  whether  his  hypothesis  were  good  or 
bad ;  he  would  be  sure  that  it  was  not  an  astro- 
nomical hypothesis  at  all.  He  would  not  search 
with  the  telescope  to  find  out  whether  or  not  his 
theory  was  confirmed  by  new  facts.  No ;  he 
would  see  that  his  thought  denied  the  possibility 
of  astronomy,  and  was  a  silly  profanation  of 
ethics  and  religion  at  the  same  time. 

The  naturalist  knows,  if  he  understands  the 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   MYSTICISM  265 

philosophical  basis  of  his  work,  and  is  not  merely 
a  technical  craftsman,  that  natural  science  means, 
not  a  simple  cast  and  copy  of  the  reality,  but  a 
special  transformation  of  reality,  a  conceptual 
construction  of  unreal  character  in  the  service  of 
special  logical  purposes.  The  naturalist  does 
not  think  that  bodies  are  in  reality  made  from 
atoms,  and  that  the  movements  of  the  stars  are 
really  the  products  of  all  the  elementary  im- 
pulses into  which  his  calculation  disintegrates 
the  causes.  He  knows  that  all  his  elements,  the 
elementary  substances  and  the  elementary  forces, 
are  merely  conceptions  worked  out  for  the  pur- 
pose of  representing  the  world  as  a  causally 
connected  mechanism.  The  real  world  is  no 
mechanism,  but  a  world  of  means  and  aims, 
objects  of  our  will  and  of  our  personal  purposes. 
But  one  of  these  purposes  is  to  conceive  the 
world  as  a  mechanism,  and  so  long  as  we  work 
in  the  service  of  this  purpose  we  presuppose  that 
the  world  is  a  mechanism.  In  the  effort  to  re- 
present the  world  as  a  causal  one  —  that  is,  in 
our  character  as  naturalists  —  we  know  only  a 
causal  world,  and  no  other.  We  may  know 
little  about  that  postulated  causal  world,  but  we 
are  sure  beforehand  that  whatever  the  future 
may  discover  about  it  must  belong  to  the  causal 
system,  or  it  is  wrong.  We  are  free  to  choose 
the  point  of  view,  but  when  we  have  chosen  it 
we  are  bound  by  its  presuppositions.     A  natu- 


2u6  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

rallst  who  begins  to  doubt  whether  the  world  is 
everywhere  causal  misunderstands  his  own  aim 
and  gives  up  his  only  end. 

These  simple  facts  from  the  methodology  of 
science  repeat  themselves  exactly,  though  in  a 
more  complicated  form,  for  psychology.  Psy" 
chology,  also,  is  never  a  mere  copy  of  the 
reality,  but  always  a  transformation  in  the  ser- 
vice of  a  special  logical  purpose.  Our  real 
inner  life  is  not  a  complex  of  elementary  sensa- 
tions, as  psychology  may  see  it :  it  is  a  system  of 
attitudes  of  will,  which  we  do  not  perceive  as 
contents  of  consciousness,  but  which  we  live 
through,  and  objects  of  will  which  are  our 
means  and  ends  and  values.  It  becomes  a 
special  interest  of  the  logical  attitude  of  the  will 
to  transform  this  real  will  system  in  conceptual 
form  into  a  causal  system,  too,  and,  in  the  ser- 
vice of  this  end,  to  put  in  the  place  of  the 
teleological  reality  a  mechanical  artificial  con- 
struction. This  construction  is  psychology,  and 
it  is  thus  clear  that  in  the  psychological  system 
itself  every  view  which  is  not  causal  is  contra- 
dictory to  the  presuppositions,  and  therefore 
scientifically  untrue.  Between  the  mental  facts, 
in  so  far  as  they  are  considered  as  psychological 
phenomena,  there  exists  no  other  possible  con- 
nection than  the  causal  one,  though,  to  be  sure, 
this  causal  view  has  not  the  slightest  meaning 
for  the  inner  reality,  which   never  consists  of 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   MYSllCISM  2G7 

psychological  phenomena.  This  is  the  point 
which  even  philosophers  so  easily  overlook :  as 
soon  as  we  speak  of  psychical  objects,  of  ideas 
and  feelings  and  volitions,  as  contents  of  con- 
sciousness, we  speak  of  an  artificial  transforma- 
tion to  which  the  categories  of  real  life  no  longer 
apply,  —  a  transformation  which  lies  in  the 
direction  of  causal  connection,  and  which  has, 
therefore,  a  right  to  existence  only  if  the  right 
to  extend  the  causal  aspect  of  nature  to  the  inner 
life  is  acknowledged.  The  personal,  the  emo- 
tional, the  romantic,  in  short  the  will-view,  con- 
trols our  real  life,  but  from  that  standpoint 
mental  life  is  never  a  psychical  fact. 

It  is  one  of  the  greatest  dangers  of  our  time 
that  the  naturalistic  point  of  view,  which  decom- 
poses the  world  into  elements  for  the  purpose  of 
causal  connection,  interferes  with  the  volitional 
point  of  view  of  the  real  life,  which  can  deal 
only  with  values,  and  not  with  elements.  I 
have  sought  again  and  again  to  point  out  this 
unfortunate  situation,  and  to  show  that  history 
and  practical  life,  education  and  art,  morality 
and  religion,  have  nothing  to  do  with  these  psy- 
chological constructions,  and  that  the  categories 
of  psychology  must  not  intrude  into  their  teleo- 
losrical  realms.  But  that  does  not  blind  me  to 
the  fact  that  exactly  the  opposite  transgression 
of  boundaries  is  going  on  all  the  time,  too.  If 
the  world  of  values  is  intruded  into  the  causal 


268  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

world,  if  the  categories  which  belong  to  reality 
are  forced  on  the  system  of  transformation  which 
was  framed  in  the  service  of  causaUty,  we  get  a 
cheap  mixture  which  satisfies  neither  the  one 
aim  nor  the  other.  Just  this  is  the  effort  of 
mysticism.  It  is  the  personal,  emotional  view 
applied,  not  to  the  world  of  reality,  where  it  fits, 
but  to  the  physical  and  psychical  worlds,  both 
of  which  are  constructed  by  the  human  logical 
will  for  the  purpose  of  an  impersonal,  unemo- 
tional causal  system.  But  to  mix  values  with 
laws  destroys  not  only  the  causal  links,  but  also 
the  values.  The  ideals  of  ethics  and  religion, 
instead  of  growing  in  the  world  of  volitional 
relations,  are  now  projected  into  the  atomistic 
structure,  and  thus  become  dependent  upon  its 
nature.  Intended  to  fill  there  the  blanks  in  the 
causal  system,  they  find  their  right  of  existence 
only  where  ignorance  of  nature  leaves  such 
blanks,  and  must  tremble  at  every  step  of  pro- 
gress science  makes.  It  is  bad  enough  when 
the  psychological  categories  are  wrongly  pushed 
into  ethics  by  the  over-extension  of  psychology, 
but  it  is  still  more  absurd  when  ethics  leaves  its 
home  in  the  real  world  and  creeps  over  to  the 
field  of  psychology,  satisfied  with  the  few  places 
to  which  science  has  not  yet  acquired  a  clear 
title.  Our  ethics  and  religion  may  thus  be 
shaken  to-morrow  by  any  new  result  of  labora- 
tory research,  and  must  be  supported  to-day  by 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND   MYSTICISM  269 

the  telepathic  performances  of  hysteric  women. 
Our  belief  in  immortality  must  rest  on  the  gos- 
sip which  departed  spirits  utter  in  dark  rooms 
through  the  mouths  of  hypnotized  business  medi- 
ums, and  our  deepest  personality  comes  to  light 
when  we  scribble  disconnected  phrases  in  auto- 
matic writing.  Is  life  then  really  still  worth 
living  ? 

VIII 

We  must  here  throw  more  light  on  some 
details  which  may  be  difficult  to  understand. 
We  have  said  that  the  claims  of  mysticism  im- 
pose the  emotional  teleological  categories  upon 
the  psychological  facts  ;  that  is,  upon  construc- 
tions which  are  formed  for  the  purpose  of  the 
mechanical  categories  only.  It  may  not  be  at 
once  evident  how  this  is  true  for  special  propo- 
sitions of  a  mystical  nature.  Of  course  we  can- 
not develop  here  the  presuppositions  of  psycho- 
logy ;  a  few  words  to  show  the  nature  of  the 
problems  must  be  sufficient.  Psychology  tries 
to  consider  the  mental  life  as  a  system  of  per- 
ceivable objects  which  are  necessarily  determined  ; 
every  transformation  which  is  serviceable  for  this 
purpose  is  psychologically  true.  If  the  mental 
facts  are  thought  as  determining  one  another, 
we  must  presuppose  that  they  have  characteris- 
tics to  which  this  effective  influence  attaches. 
These  characteristics  are  called  tbeir  elements, 


270  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

and  therefore,  for  psychologists,  the  mental  life 
consists  of  elements.  The  psychical  material  is 
different  from  the  physical  by  the  presupposition 
that  it  exists  for  one  subject  only.  It  is  there- 
fore not  communicable  ;  since  incommunicable, 
it  is  not  determinable  by  communicable  units, 
and  hence  is  not  measurable,  —  not  quantitative, 
but  only  quahtative.  Consequently,  it  is  incapa- 
ble of  entering  into  a  mathematical  equation,  and 
is  unfit  to  play  the  role  of  determinable  causes 
and  effects.  Before  psychical  elements  can  be 
transformed  into  a  system  of  causes  and  effects 
a  further  transformation  must  be  made ;  they 
must  be  thought  as  amalgamated  with  physical 
processes  which  exist  for  many,  and  which  are 
measurable,  and  therefore  capable  of  forming  a 
necessary  causal  system.  The  psychical  facts 
are  thus  thought  of  as  accompaniments  of  physi- 
cal processes,  and  in  their  appearance  and  disap- 
pearance fully  determined  by  the  physical  events. 
There  is  no  materialistic  harm  in  this  doctrine, 
as  it  aims  at  no  reference  to  reality,  but  is  merely 
a  construction  for  a  special  purpose ;  within  its 
sphere,  however,  there  cannot  be  any  exception. 
If  the  psychical  facts  are  thought  of  as  accom- 
paniments of  the  physical  processes,  they  must  be 
projected  into  the  physical  world,  and  must 
accept  its  forms  of  existence,  space  and  time. 
The  real  inner  life  in  its  teleological  reality  is 
spaceless   and   timeless,  —  it   knows   space  and 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  271 

time  only  as  forms  of  its  objects  ;  the  psycholo- 
gical phenomena  themselves  enter  into  space  and 
time  as  soon  as  they  are  connected  with  the 
physical  phenomena.  They  are  now  psycho- 
physical elements  which  can  determine  one  an- 
other only  by  the  causal  relations  of  the  physical 
substratum.  The  working  hypothesis  of  modern 
psychology  —  that  every  mental  state  is  a  com- 
plex of  psychical  elements,  of  which  each  is  the 
accompaniment  of  a  physical  process  in  time  and 
space,  and  influences  others  or  is  influenced  by 
others  merely  through  the  medium  of  physical 
processes  —  is  then  not  an  arbitrary  theory.  It 
is  the  necessary  outcome  of  the  presuppositions 
which  the  human  will  has  freely  chosen  for  its 
logical  purposes,  and  to  which  it  is  bound  by  its 
own  decision. 

From  this  point  a  full  light  of  explanation 
falls  upon  all  our  earlier  decisions.  We  rejected 
every  claimed  fact  in  which  the  psychological 
facts  were  without  a  physical  substratum,  as  in 
the  case  of  departed  spirits  and  those  in  which 
psychical  facts  influenced  one  another  without 
physical  intermediation,  as  in  telepathy.  If 
mental  life  is  taken  in  its  reality,  it  must  not  be 
considered  as  composed  of  elements,  ideas,  and 
f  eehngs,  but  must  be  taken  as  a  whole ;  then  it 
is  not  in  bodily  personalities,  not  in  space  and 
not  in  time,  —  in  short,  is  not  a  psychological 
fact  at  all.     But  if  we  take  it  as  psychological 


272  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

fact  in  human  bodies  and  in  time,  it  must  be 
thought  of  in  accordance  with  the  psychological 
presuppositions,  as  bound  to  the  physical  events, 
communicated  by  their  intermediation  and  disap- 
pearing at  their  destruction.  Where  these  con- 
ditions are  in  part  wanting,  psychology  declines 
to  accept  the  propositions  as  truths,  and  de- 
mands a  further  transformation  of  the  facts  till 
the  demands  of  psychology  are  satisfied.  Mysti- 
cism, however,  prefers  an  easier  way.  Where- 
ever  the  conditions  of  psychological  truth  are 
absent,  and,  owing  to  the  lack  of  physical  sub- 
strata or  of  physical  mediation,  the  psychical  facts 
are  disconnected  or  unexplained  in  their  exist- 
ence, there  mysticism  imports  the  teleological 
links  of  the  prepsychological  real  world,  and 
gives  the  illusion  that  the  psychical  facts  have 
been  thus  explained  and  connected. 

Perhaps  most  instructive  in  this  respect  are 
those  claims  of  mysticism  which  refer  to  the 
healing  influences  of  men,  because  here  it  ap- 
pears most  clearly  that  it  is  not  the  facts,  but 
only  the  points  of  view,  which  constitute  the 
mysticism.  The  facts  from  which  these  claims 
arise  the  psychologist  does  not  deny  at  all ;  as 
we  have  seen,  he  takes  them  for  granted.  But 
he  explains  them  by  suggestion  and  other  famil- 
iar laws  of  mental  action,  and  thus  links  the 
psychical  phenomena  by  an  uninterrupted  chain 
of  physical  processes.     The  mystic,  on  the  other 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  273 

hand,  brinofs  the  same  facts  under  the  catejrories 
which  belong  to  the  world  of  values :  prayer  has 
now  a  heahng  influence,  not  because  it  is  per- 
ceived by  the  senses  of  the  patient,  and  works 
through  association  some  inhibitory  changes  in 
his  brain,  but  because  prayer  is  ethically  and 
religiously  valuable.  Not  its  physiological  ac- 
companiments which  produce  psychophysical 
effects,  but  its  goodness  and  piety  secure  success, 
and,  conversely,  the  illness  which  is  cured  by 
the  prayer  must  be  a  symptom  of  moral  and 
religious  obliquity.  The  causal  conception  of  a 
disturbance  of  physiological  functions  is  thus 
transmuted  into  the  ethical  conception  of  sin. 
Exactly  the  same  psychophysical  facts,  the 
prayer  of  the  transmitter  and  the  feeling  of 
improvement  in  the  receiver,  are  in  this  case, 
then,  connected  by  the  mystic  and  the  scientist 
in  different  ways,  without  any  need  on  either 
side  of  a  further  transformation  of  the  facts. 
For  the  one,  it  is  the  causal  process  that  a  sug- 
gestion psychophysically  overpower  nervous  inhi- 
bition ;  for  the  other,  it  is  the  victory  of  saint- 
hood over  sin,  by  its  religious  values.  If  the 
scientist  maintains  that  only  the  first  is  an 
explanatory  connection,  the  second  not,  does  he 
mean  by  this  that  goodness  has  no  power  over 
evil  ?  Certainly  not ;  he  means  something  very 
different.  Goodness  and  evil,  he  thinks,  are 
relations  and  attitudes  of  will,  which  have  their 


274  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

reality  in  being  willed  and  lived  through.  They 
are  not  psychophysical  facts,  to  be  perceived  as 
taking  time,  and  going  on  in  space  in  a  special 
brain  and  nervous  system.  They  belong  to  the 
world  of  willing  subjects,  not  to  the  world  of 
atomistic  objects;  they  are  primary,  while  sug- 
gestions and  inhibitions  and  all  the  other  psycho- 
physical objects  are  unreal  derived  constructions. 
If  prayer  and  sin  are  taken  in  their  reality  as  we 
live  through  them,  then  of  course  their  meaning 
and  their  value  alone  are  in  question,  and  it 
would  be  absurd  to  apply  to  them  the  relations 
of  causal  connection.  As  realities,  they  are  not 
brain  processes ;  as  such,  they  do  not  come  in 
question  as  processes  in  time  and  space ;  as  such, 
they  are  not  transmuted  into  mere  objects.  If 
we  take  them  in  their  reality  as  will-attitudes, 
they  have  no  relation  to  causality.  If  we  take 
them  as  psychological  processes  which  go  on  in 
time  in  physical  personalities,  then  we  have 
transformed  them  in  the  service  of  causality,  and 
have  pledged  ourselves  to  the  causal  system. 
An  ethical  connection  of  psychophysical  facts  is 
a  direct  inner  contradiction  ;  it  means  applying 
the  categories  of  will  to  objects  which  we  have 
taken  away  from  the  will  for  the  single  purpose 
of  putting  them  into  a  system  of  will-less  cate- 
gories. We  might  just  as  well  demand  that  the 
figures  of  a  painting  should  talk  and  move 
about. 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  275 

IX 

Another  case  in  which  scientists  and  mystics 
agree  in  regard  to  the  facts  is  that  of  double 
personality.  The  difference  here,  also,  is  only 
one  of  interpretation.  We  have  seen  that  the 
psychologist  understands  this  class  of  facts  as 
various  degrees  of  disaggregation  of  psychophy- 
sical elements,  whereas  the  mystic  introduces  the 
ethical  categories  of  different  responsibility  and 
dignity.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  telepathic  or 
spirituaHstic  claims  :  here  there  is  no  agreement 
about  the  facts,  and  yet  the  principle  is  the 
same  as  in  the  other  cases.  The  mystic  applies 
the  emotional  personal  links  in  this  case,  also, 
not  to  the  reahty,  but  to  psychological  facts  in  a 
stage  of  transformation  which  the  psychologist 
does  not  accept  because  they  do  not  allow  causal 
connection.  The  psychologist  calls  the  claimed 
facts  untrue,  because  the  transformation  of  real- 
ity is  psychologically  or  physically  true  only 
when  it  has  reached  that  form  in  which  it  fits 
into  the  causal  system.  It  is  the  aim  of  science 
to  find  the  true  facts,  —  that  is,  to  transform 
reality  till  the  ends  of  causal  ordering  are  at- 
tained ;  and  if  they  are  not  attained,  the  objects 
have  not  become  a  part  of  the  existing  psycho- 
logical or  physical  world.  An  infinite  number 
of  facts  appear  to  us  in  disconnected  form,  but 
we  ignore  them  ;  they  remain  only  propositions  3 


276  PSYCHOLOGY   AND   MYSTICISM 

they  have  not  existence,  because  they  do  not 
fulfill  the  conditions  upon  which,  according  to 
the  decision  of  the  will  which  produces  science, 
psychical  or  physical  existence  depends.  That  a 
fact  is  true  in  the  world  of  psychical  facts  means 
that  it  is  selected  as  fit  for  a  special  logical 
purpose ;  and  if  the  telepathic  facts,  for  instance, 
are  not  suited  to  that  purpose,  they  are  not  true 
according  to  the  only  consistent  standard  of 
truth.  They  must  become  somehow  otherwise ; 
that  is,  they  must  be  transformed  until  they  can 
be  accepted  as  existing.  The  history  of  science 
constantly  demonstrates  this  necessity.  It  is 
absurd  for  the  mystics  to  claim  the  backing  of 
history  because  it  shows  that  many  things  are 
acknowledged  as  true  to-day  which  were  not 
believed  in  earlier  times.  The  teaching  of  his- 
tory, on  the  contrary,  annihilates  almost  cruelly 
every  claim  of  mysticism,  as,  far  from  a  later 
approval  of  mystical  wisdom,  history  has  in 
every  case  remoulded  the  facts  till  they  have 
become  causal  ones.  If  the  scientists  of  earlier 
times  disbelieved  in  phenomena  as  products  of 
witchcraft,  and  believe  to-day  in  the  same  phe- 
nomena as  products  of  hypnotic  suggestion  and 
hysteria,  the  mystics  are  not  victorious,  but 
defeated.  As  long  as  the  ethical  category  of 
Satanic  influence  was  applied  to  the  appearances 
they  were  not  true ;  as  soon  as  they  were  brought 
under  the  causal  categories  they  were  accepted 


PSYCHOLOGY   AND   MYSTICISM  277 

as  true,  but  they  were  then  no  longer  mystical, — 
it  was  not  witchcraft  any  more. 

This  process  of  transformation  goes  on  stead- 
ily ;  millions  of  propositions  which  life  suggests 
remain  untrue  till  they  are  adjusted.  Just  this 
would  be  the  fate  of  the  telepathic  propositions: 
they  would  remain  below  the  threshold  of  the 
world  of  empirical  facts,  if  a  mistaken  emotional 
attitude  did  not  awaken  the  illusion  that  there 
exists  here  a  connection  capable  of  satisfying  the 
demand  for  explanation.  The  personal  impor- 
tance then  links  what  ought  to  be  linked  by 
impersonal  causality.  A  feeling  of  depression 
in  the  psychophysical  organism  and  the  death  of 
a  friend  a  thousand  miles  distant  have  for  us  no 
causal  connection,  but  an  emotional  one.  The 
two  events  have  no  relation  in  the  sphere  of 
objects ;  they  are  connected  only  in  the  sphere 
of  will-acts ;  and  the  link  is  not  the  goodness, 
as  in  the  case  of  healing  by  prayer,  but  the 
emotional  importance  of  the  death  for  the 
friend's  feeling  attitude.  By  this  will-connec- 
tion the  two  phenomena  are  selected  and  linked 
together,  and  offer  themselves  as  one  fact,  while 
without  that  emotional  unity  they  would  remain 
disconnected,  and  therefore  in  this  combination 
they  would  not  be  accepted  in  the  sphere  of 
empirical  facts. 

Does  the  scientist  maintain,  in  his  opposition 
to  telepathy,  that  in  reality  mental  communica- 


278  PSYCHOLOGY   AND  MYSTICISM 

tion  between  subjects  is  possible  only  by  physi- 
cal intermediation?  Decidedly  not.  If  I  talk 
with  others  whom  I  wish  to  convince,  there  is 
no  physical  process  in  question  ;  mind  reaches 
mind,  thought  reaches  thought ;  but  in  this 
aspect  thoughts  are  not  psychophysical  pheno- 
mena in  space  and  time,  but  attitudes  and  propo- 
sitions in  the  sphere  of  the  will.  If  we  take  our 
mental  life  in  its  felt  reality,  then  the  emotional 
conviction  that  no  physical  wall  intervenes  be- 
tween mind  and  mind  is  the  only  correct  one ; 
it  would  be  even  meaningless  to  look  for  physi- 
cal connection.  But  if  we  transform  the  reality 
into  psychological  objects  in  time  and  in  bodies, 
then  we  are  bound  by  the  aim  of  the  transfor- 
mation, and  we  can  acknowledge  their  connec- 
tion as  true  only  if  it  is  a  mechanical  one. 

Finally,  the  ethical  demand  for  immortality, 
when  applied  to  the  artificial  construction  of 
psychology  instead  of  to  the  real  life,  brings  out 
the  most  repulsive  claim  of  mysticism,  —  spirit- 
ualism. The  ethical  belief  in  immortality  means 
that  we  as  subjects  of  will  are  immortal;  that 
is,  that  we  are  not  reached  by  death.  For  the 
philosophical  mind  which  sees  the  difference 
between  reality  and  psychological  transforma- 
tion, immortality  is  certain  ;  for  him,  the  denial 
of  immortality  would  be  even  quite  meaningless. 
Death  is  a  biological  phenomenon  in  the  world 
of  objects  in  time ;  how  then  can  death  reach  a 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  279 

reality  which  is  not  an  object,  but  an  attitude, 
and  therefore  neither  in  time  nor  in  space?  Our 
real  inner  subjective  life  has  its  felt  validity,  not 
in  time,  but  beyond  time ;  it  is  eternal.  We 
have  seen  why  the  purpose  of  psychology  de- 
mands that  this  non-local  and  non-temporal  sub- 
jectivity shall  be  transformed  into  a  psychical 
object,  and  as  such  projected  into  the  space-  and 
time  -  filling  organism.  By  that  demand  the 
mental  life  itself  becomes  a  process  in  time;  and 
if  the  ethical  demand  for  immortality  is  now 
transplanted  into  this  circle  of  constructed  phe- 
nomena, there  must  result  a  clash  between 
psychology  and  human  emotion.  Conceiving 
mental  life  as  a  process  in  time  was  done  merely 
for  the  purpose  of  representing  it  as  the  accom- 
paniment of  physical  phenomena,  and  now  to 
demand  that  it  should  go  on  in  time  after  the 
destruction  of  this  physical  substratum  is  absurd. 
In  so  far  as  we  conceive  mental  life  as  an  artificial 
psychological  process  in  time,  in  so  far  we  think 
of  it  only  as  part  of  a  psychophysical  phenome- 
non, and  thus  never  without  a  body,  disappearing 
when  the  body  ceases  to  function.  To  the 
ethical  idealist  this  impossibility  of  the  psycho- 
logical immortality  is  a  revelation ;  for  such 
pseudo- immortality  could  satisfy  only  the  low 
and  vulgar  instincts  of  man,  and  not  his  eth- 
ical feelings.  Only  to  a  cheap  curiosity  can  it 
appear  desirable  that  the  inner  life  viewed  as  a 


280  PSYCHOLOGY  AND   MYSTICISM 

series  of  psychological  facts  shall  go  on  and 
on,  that  we  may  be  able  to  see  what  is  to  hap- 
pen in  a  thousand  or  in  a  million  years.  Life 
seen  from  a  psychological  point  of  view  as  a 
mere  chain  of  psychological  phenomena  is  utterly 
worthless.  It  would  be  intolerable  for  seventy 
years ;  who  would  desire  it  for  seventy  million 
years?  Multiplication  by  zero  always  leads 
back  to  naught.  And  even  if  we  perceive  all 
the  facts  of  the  universe  for  all  time  to  come,  is 
that  of  any  value?  We  should  shiver  at  the 
thought  of  knowing  all  that  is  printed  in  one 
year,  or  all  that  men  of  a  single  town  feel  pass- 
ing through  their  minds;  how  intolerable  the 
thought  of  knowing  even  all  that  is  and  that 
will  be !  It  is  like  the  thought  of  endlessness  in 
space :  if  we  were  to  grow  endlessly  tall,  so  that 
we  became  large  like  the  universe,  reaching  with 
our  arms  to  the  stars,  physically  almighty,  would 
our  life  be  more  worth  living,  would  it  be  better 
or  nobler  or  more  beautiful  ?  No  ;  extension  in 
space  and  time  has  not  the  slightest  ethical 
value,  for  it  necessarily  refers  only  to  those 
objects  which  exist  in  space  or  time,  and  all  our 
real  values  lie  beyond  it.  The  mortality  of  the 
psychological  phenomena  and  the  immortality  of 
our  real  inner  life  belong  necessarily  together, 
and  the  claim  that  the  deceased  spirits  go  on 
with  psychological  existence  is  therefore  not 
only  a  denial  of  the  purposes  for  which  the  idea 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM  281 

of  psychological  existence  is  constructed,  but 
also  a  violation  of  the  ethical  belief  in  immor- 
tality. 

Here,  then,  as  everywhere,  mysticism  means 
nothing  else  than  the  attempt  to  force  the 
emotional  categories  on  an  unreal  construction, 
whose  only  presupposition  was  that  it  had  to  be 
constructed  as  an  unemotional  objective  mech- 
anism. The  result  is  a  miserable  changeling, 
which  satisfies  neither  the  one  side  nor  the 
other.  If  mysticism  is  not  contented  with  the 
childish  or  hysteric  pleasure  of  throwing  obsta- 
cles in  the  way  of  advancing  science,  it  can 
have,  indeed,  little  satisfaction  from  its  own 
crippled  products.  Thousands  and  thousands 
of  spirits  have  appeared ;  the  ghosts  of  the 
greatest  men  have  said  their  say,  and  yet  the 
substance  of  it  has  been  always  the  absurdest 
silliness.  Not  one  inspiring  thought  has  yet 
been  transmitted  by  this  mystical  way ;  only  the 
most  vulgar  trivialities.  It  has  never  helped  to 
find  the  truth  ;  it  has  never  brought  forth  any- 
thing but  nervous  fear  and  superstition. 

We  have  the  truth  of  life.  Its  realities  are 
subjective  acts,  linked  together  by  the  categories 
of  personality,  giving  us  values  and  ideals,  har- 
mony and  unity  and  immortality.  But  we  have, 
as  one  of  the  duties  of  life,  the  search  for  the 
truth  of  science  which  transforms  reality  in 
order  to   construct  an    hnpersonal  system,   and 


282  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  MYSTICISM 

gives  us  causal  explanation  and  order.  If  we 
force  the  system  of  science  upon  the  real  life, 
claiming  that  our  life  is  really  a  psychophysical 
phenomenon,  we  are  under  the  illusion  of  psy- 
chologism.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  force  the 
views  of  the  real  life,  the  personal  categories, 
upon  the  scientific  psychophysical  phenomena, 
we  are  under  the  illusion  of  mysticism.  The 
result  in  both  cases  is  the  same.  We  lose  the 
truth  of  life  and  the  truth  of  science.  The  real 
world  loses  its  values,  and  the  scientific  world 
loses  its  order;  they  flow  together  in  a  new 
world  controlled  by  inanity  and  trickery,  unwor- 
thy of  our  scientific  interests  and  unfit  for  our 
ethical  ideals. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abnormal  mental  life,  107,  119, 

1.34. 
Action  theory,  93-99. 
Esthetic  creation,  154-1.57. 
Esthetic  enjoyment,  158-162. 
Esthetic  prescriptions,  163-169. 
Analysis,  44. 

Apperception  theory,  88-92. 
Appreciation,  24. 
Art,  145-178,  202-204. 
Association  theory,  88. 
Atoms,  20,  265. 
Axioms,  57. 

Beauty,  174,  201. 
Biography,  216. 
Biology,  72. 
Body,  62. 
Brain,  35-99. 

Causality,  218-222. 
Causal  laws,  8,  71,  263. 
Central  organ,  74. 
Centrifugal  impulses,  92. 
Child  psychology,  106-121. 
Christian  science,  246,  272. 
Civilization,  77,  217. 
Communication,  44—49. 
Consciousness,  4,  46,  84. 
Conservation  of  energy,  71. 

Darwinism,  74-78. 

Description,  44-.53,  191-194. 

Development,  73-81. 

Division  of  labor,  77. 

Double  consciousness,  249-252. 

Drawing  teachers,   147,    163-169, 

177. 
Duty,  172-178,  199,  227. 


Educational     theories,     135-143, 

166,  167. 
Elements,  51,  269. 
Emotion,  51. 

Emotional  thinking,  263-282. 
Ethical  action,  79. 
Ethical  laws,  11. 
Existence,  24,  28,  196. 
Existential  judgment,  188-191. 
Expectation,  29. 

Experimental  aesthetics,  157-162. 
Experimental     psychology,     123- 

125,  162. 
Explanation,  53-67,  191-194. 

Freedom,  7,  221. 

Ganglion  cells,  83. 
God,  28. 

History,  9,  16,  26,  179-228. 
Hypnotism,  239-249. 

Ideals,  17,  268. 

Ideas,  50. 

Idiographic  sciences,  185. 

Immortality,  90,  278. 

Inhibition,  95. 

Innervation  feelings,  84,  95. 

Instruction   in    psychology,    103- 

105. 
Intensity,  85. 

Judgment,  51. 

I^aboratory  experiments,  158-162. 
Laws,  8,  56,  185-191,  214 
Life,  23. 
Logical  thinking,  22. 


Education,  100-144,  163-169.  |  Materialism,  13,  20. 


286 


INDEX 


Metaphysics,  28,  200. 
Methods  of  teaching,  129. 
Mind  cure,  246,  272. 
Motor  centres,  92. 
Muscle  reading,  236. 
Muscle  sensations,  97. 
Mysticism,  229-282. 

Naturalism,  1-4,  181. 
Natural  sciences,  187-191. 
Necessity,  57. 
Nomothetic  sciences,  185. 
Normative  sciences,  27,   172-178, 
181,  225-228. 

Objects,  24,  171,  206. 
Over-individual  will  acts,  27,  172- 

178. 
Overman,  77. 

Paidology,  108-111. 

Personality,   4-9,   130,    131,    198, 

209-217. 
Philosophy  of  history,  215. 
Physical  objects,  30,  39. 
Physiological   psychology,  35-99, 

125-127. 
Poetry,  148-151. 
Primitivistic  art,  168. 
Psycho-educational     laboratories, 

141. 
Psychological  objects,  31,  267. 
Psychologism,  20. 
Psychophysical  parallelism,  42, 64. 

Quality,  85. 
Quantity,  58. 


Rational  psychology,  133. 
Reactions,  75. 

ReaUty,  22-31,  198-200,  265. 
Responsibility,  8. 

Self-observation,  37,  45,  124. 
Sensations,  31,  51,  85,  98. 
Skepticism,  17,  227. 
Social  psychology,  26,  154,  155. 
Soul,  72. 
Space,  54,  270. 
Spiritualism,  278-281. 
Structure  of  the  brain,  81-96. 
Subjects,  24. 
Substitution,  32,  53. 
Suggestion,  239-249. 
Symmetry,  160,  161. 

Teachers,  116,  120,  129, 147,  163- 

169. 
Teleological  connection,  59,  211, 

224. 
Telepathy,  236,  243,  275-278. 
Therapeutical  influences,  244-249, 

272,  273. 
Time,  14,  270,  279. 
Tools,  77. 
Transformation  of  reality,  22,  39, 

98. 
Transmission  theory,  90. 
Truth,  17,  98. 

Values  of  sensations,  87. 
Vividness,  86-98. 
Volition,  51. 

WiU,  23-28,  30, 172-174,  208-217. 


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